State-of-the-art in service orientation in the German medical engineering sector

Services have become a major trend in recent years. Especially in the manufacturing industry a stronger service orientation is advocated as a means to keep up the competitive advantage in an environment currently marked by a high competitive pressure from emerging countries and a levelling technical advantage. Though the research on service orientation in manufacturing industry gained on maturity in the last years, a limited scope of industry sectors dominates the empirical studies conducted. This paper sheds light on the actual state-of-the art in service orientation in terms of service scope and motivation in a sector predominantly associated with high-technology products, namely the German medical engineering sector. The findings presented are based on the qualitative interviews with 12 companies conducted with German manufacturers of medical devices