To servitize is to (re)position : utilizing a Porterian view to understand servitization and value systems

Drawing on the case of a global servitizing company in the ship power industry, we use a Porterian toolkit for analyzing the implications of industry power and its consequences on firm vertical (re)positioning within the value system. Whereas repositioning has been seen as a way of moving closer to customers and obtaining new competencies, strategic moves aimed at increasing companies’ sphere of influence were neglected. This chapter illustrates how the power approach to repositioning, through different alternative mechanisms, complements the widespread capability view and contributes to value system analysis in servitization.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Measuring new product and service portfolio advantage

The current study introduces the concept of new product and service portfolio (NPSP) advantage by creating and validating a three-dimensional measurement method that reflects novelty, meaningfulness and superiority – the three characteristics of NPSP advantage. Based on industry-wide homogeneous generalizable quantitative data from 108 manufacturing companies, the results indicate that these three characteristics of NPSP – novelty, meaningfulness and superiority – are distinct characteristics that together constitute NPSP advantage. This paper contributes to the literature on new product development, as its findings suggest that when measuring the concept of NPSP advantage, the three-dimensional construct that includes the three aforementioned characteristics has a better fit to the data than the unidimensional structure. Because it considers both new products and services, the current study offers an integrated approach to measure the desired innovation process outcome (NPSP advantage). In this way, this paper bridges the research on new product development with that on new service development.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Solution sales process blueprinting

By utilising the blueprinting technique, this study develops a sales process framework that visualises different activities, actors, and customer touch-points in the solution sales process. Based on a multiple-case study that includes data from eight Finnish manufacturers (18 face-to-face interviews with company representatives), our findings show that, although the main actors that have a direct encounter with customers are the salespeople, early engagement of the project and design divisions help firms serve and understand customers better. Additionally, interactions with customers during post-sales delivery allow the acquisition and dissemination of new information. While displaying the customer touch-points and how actors in provider's organisation interact to deliver value for customers, the process blueprint reveals the need for improvements in the firms' sales process design, to better integrate the service function into the selling phase and to enhance the opportunities for post-sales customer support.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Making connections: harnessing the diversity of strategy-as-practice research

Strategy-as-practice (SAP) has become one of the most vibrant areas of contemporary strategy research in the past two decades. As the field has grown significantly, we have witnessed an emergence of distinct streams of research within the SAP research community. Thus, it is time to take stock of this body of work to better understand the structure of the field and provide a refreshed agenda for future research. Our review is based on bibliometric analysis and a systematic review of 340 articles. As a result, we identify the following six clusters of research: praxis, sensemaking, discourse, sociomateriality, institutional and process. Co-citation analysis shows significant disconnects between some of these clusters. Building on our review, we identify various ‘crossing strategies’ for connecting across four disconnects: (i) micro and macro; (ii) sociomaterial and discourse; (iii) critical and more mainstream; and (iv) practice and process perspectives. By harnessing diversity, these crossing strategies suggest rich agendas for future SAP research, ranging from digitalization to gender inequality

Los institutos nacionales de investigaci?n agropecuaria del Cono Sur: nuevos ?mbitos y cambios institucionales

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Managing digital servitization toward smart solutions: Framing the connections between technologies, business models, and ecosystems

The present study extends the discussion on product manufacturers' digital servitization toward smart solutions by outlining and reviewing the existing literature on digital servitization and smart solutions. We focus on potential configurations based on technologies, business models, and ecosystems to understand how this transition can be managed through the process of reconfiguration. We define smart solutions as an advanced state of product-service-software systems, and we use moving vehicles as a case in point. We base our discussion on a configurational research approach, examining the role of advanced technologies (e.g., artificial intelligence), novel business models, and modern ecosystems (e.g., platforms and innovation ecosystems) in shaping digital servitization toward smart and autonomous solutions. We identify gaps in the literature, offer an analytical framework, suggest avenues for future research, and contribute by laying the theoretical foundations and proposing managerial directions for a digital servitization journey toward smart solutions. By so doing, we present the papers accepted to the current IMM special issue on “Moving toward autonomous solutions: The role of Product-Service-Software Systems”, which this review article introduces.©2022 Elsevier. This manuscript version is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial–NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY–NC–ND 4.0) license, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/fi=vertaisarvioimaton|en=nonPeerReviewed

Developing a Maturity Model for Digital Servitization in Manufacturing Firms

In today’s rapidly changing markets, manufacturing firms are increasingly challenged by the convergence of digital technologies and servitization, which is defined as Digital Servitization. Enterprises struggle to grasp this phenomenon’s vision, constantly facing pressures to obtain and retain competitive advantage, inventing and reinventing new products and services, reducing costs and time to market, and enhancing quality at the same time. They need to define improvement actions to be taken to navigate through the transformation process and prioritize between different activities. Prior research has highlighted the importance of how to proceed into this transformation, however less emphasis has been put on suggesting suitable activities that fit the organization’s current status and future goals. To overcome this challenge, we propose a maturity model for digital servitization that serves as an assessment tool. The design of our maturity model is grounded in literature and expert interviews. During its evolutionary development, we gathered, structured and organized several critical requirements for digital servitization. We could also explore and highlight important attributes that must be examined by companies during the transformational process. We contribute by our proposed maturity model that serves companies not only as a diagnostics tool to assess the current situation, but also as a guideline for continuous improvement