Capabilities for advanced services:a multi-actor perspective

Abstract

Servitization involves manufacturers developing service offerings to grow revenue and profit. Advanced services, in particular, can facilitate a more service-focused organization and impact customers' business processes significantly. However, approaches to servitization are often discussed solely from the manufacturer's perspective; overlooking the role of other network actors. Adopting a multi-actor perspective, this study investigates manufacturer, intermediary and customer perspectives to identify complementary and competing capabilities within a manufacturer's downstream network, required for advanced services. Interviews were conducted with 24 senior executives in 19 UK-based manufacturers, intermediaries and customers across multiple sectors. The study identified six key business activities, within which advanced services capabilities were grouped. The unique and critical capabilities for advanced services for each actor were identified as follows: manufacturers; the need to balance product and service innovation, developing customer-focused through-life service methodologies and having distinct, yet synergistic product and service cultures; intermediaries, the coordination and integration of third party products/services; customers, co-creating innovation and having processes supporting service outsourcing. The study is unique in highlighting the distinct roles of different actors in the provision of advanced services and shows that they can only be developed and delivered by the combination of complex interconnected capabilities found within a network.

Publication DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2016.04.015
Divisions: College of Business and Social Sciences > Aston Business School > Operations & Information Management
College of Business and Social Sciences > Aston Business School > Advanced Services Group
Additional Information: -
Uncontrolled Keywords: advanced services,capabilities,complementary capabilities,network actors,servitization,Marketing
Publication ISSN: 1873-2062
Last Modified: 25 Mar 2024 08:17
Date Deposited: 07 Nov 2019 14:05
Full Text Link:
Related URLs: http://www.scop ... tnerID=8YFLogxK (Scopus URL)
https://www.sci ... 0712?via%3Dihub (Publisher URL)
PURE Output Type: Article
Published Date: 2017-01-01
Published Online Date: 2016-05-09
Accepted Date: 2015-04-23
Submitted Date: 2015-03-25
Authors: Story, Vicky M.
Raddats, Chris
Burton, Jamie
Zolkiewski, Judy
Baines, Tim (ORCID Profile 0000-0002-7518-2967)

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