Purpose
This paper aims to identify a manufacturer’s abilities to develop, build, sell and deliver Internet of Things (IoT) services.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is a qualitative ...comparative case method that uses multiple sources of data, including executive interviews and secondary data, to understand a manufacturer’s IoT capabilities.
Findings
Five strategic IoT capabilities were identified: digital business model development, scalable solution platform building, value selling, value delivery and business intelligence and measurement.
Research limitations/implications
The main limitations are related to the qualitative research method applied. The results are applicable mainly to relatively large and global manufacturers.
Practical implications
Managers responsible for solution business development can apply the developed model to acquire and manage IoT specific resources, processes and capabilities.
Originality/value
Existing studies have not addressed the IoT-specific resources, processes and capabilities that manufacturers’ possess. This is one of the first studies to conceptualize how these capabilities are used.
Solution providers’ strategic capabilities Huikkola, Tuomas; Kohtamäki, Marko
The Journal of business & industrial marketing,
01/2017, Volume:
32, Issue:
5
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Purpose
Drawing on the resource-based view of the firm, this study aims to analyze solution providers’ strategic capabilities that facilitate above-average returns.
Design/methodology/approach
The ...study applies a qualitative comparative case method. In addition to an extensive set of secondary data, the results are based on interviews with 35 executives from nine leading industrial solution providers, their strategic customers and suppliers. The analyzed solution providers were identified based on quantitative survey data.
Findings
By observing six distinctive resources and three strategic business processes, the present study identifies seven strategic capabilities that occur in different phases of solution development and deployment: fleet management capability, technology-development capability, mergers and acquisitions capability, value quantifying capability, project management capability, supplier network management capability and value co-creation capability.
Research limitations/implications
The study develops a generic model for the strategic capabilities of servitization. Application of the developed model to different contexts would further validate and enhance it.
Practical implications
Managers can use the developed model to benchmark, identify, build and manage solution providers’ strategic capabilities and associated practices.
Originality/value
The study develops a valuable conceptual model based on the comparative case data. Case firms were selected for the study based on a representative quantitative data set. The results were verified and triangulated with external data.
The present study analyzes how a product manufacturer alters its strategic capabilities to become a smart solution provider by employing its dynamic capabilities. We scrutinize how a manufacturer ...facilitates strategic change by realigning its strategic capabilities and processes from a focus on technical product-development capabilities to product-service-software development capabilities, reconfiguring organizational routines focused on efficiency to routines focused on customer productivity, and shifting from a product logic to a service logic. By studying six leading manufacturing firms based on 86 manager interviews, the present study finds that strategic capabilities are renewed through dynamic capabilities, which involve a reconfiguration of strategic capabilities and processes. Furthermore, manufacturers need to consider the dynamic interplay between resource realignment modes (building digital capabilities, leveraging existing capabilities, accessing external capabilities, and releasing decaying capabilities), hence stressing their reinforcing mechanism to converge products, services, and software. For managers, our study highlights several strategic renewal practices designed to assist and benchmark how strategic capabilities are altered.
•This study scrutinizes how traditional product manufacturers alter their strategic capabilities to become smart solution providers by employing their dynamic capabilities.•Manufacturers need to consider the dynamic interplay between resource realignment modes, hence stressing their reinforcing mechanism to converge products, services, and software successfully.•The study provides practices for managers to benchmark how capabilities are managed when product manufacturer is becoming a smart solution provider.
The present study analyzes how servitization delineates a manufacturer's boundaries. Based on interviews with 57 senior managers and extensive secondary data collected from four global solution ...providers, this study contributes by revealing how servitization shapes firm boundary decisions and repositioning practices. First, the results demonstrate that servitization changes a manufacturer's a) identity from technology-focused to customer-centric, b) capabilities to integrate technology development with customer value understanding, c) power position in the manufacturing ecosystem from upstream to downstream, and d) efficiency logic toward a service factory logic. Second, this study describes the interplay among these boundary lenses in servitization. The developed framework can assist managers in their strategy implementation when moving toward servitization.
•This empirical study exposes that a manufacturer’s transition from products to services requires firm’s boundary changes.•Manufacturers must consider the dynamic interplay among the four boundary lenses when moving toward servitization.•Firms should have a clear overall plan and rules concerning the actions and practices they will accomplish to drive that change.•Alliances/joint ventures are common practices in the upstream, whereas acquisitions/new investments are used in the downstream.
This study focuses on digital servitization (DS) through autonomous solutions by building on a service ecosystems perspective. The rise of autonomous solutions exemplifies the ongoing digitalization ...and societal transformation and therefore integrative theoretical perspectives are needed to complement the dominant focal actor perspective in extant DS research. The study presents a longitudinal case of a solution provider's DS process to demonstrate how transformation towards autonomous shipping was driven in the maritime sector. An empirically enriched framework communicates DS process as aligned changes in value propositions, resource configurations and institutional arrangements within the service ecosystem. The study offers academic contributions and practical implications on managing DS through autonomous solutions as a strategic reorientation of a firm in the multi-level context of service ecosystem transformation.
•The study furthers understanding on digital servitization through autonomous solutions.•The study puts forward an empirically enriched framework on digital servitization through autonomous solutions.•The study shows how digital servitization could be managed vis-à-vis service ecosystems transformation.•The study provides in-depth analysis of a technology provider's digital servitization process through autonomous solutions.
This conceptual study explores the alignment between servitization—a shift from selling products to offering services—and circularity principles. The study introduces institutional confluence—a ...configuration of institutional pressures that enhance business model legitimacy to stakeholders and facilitate operational success— which can serve as a driver aligning servitization with circular principles. Institutional confluence has the capacity to trigger novel business models, shape resources and processes, enhance value capture, and inhibit unsustainable business models. The study develops the concept and underscores the role of institutional confluence in promoting this alignment and subsequent environmental sustainability. The article utilizes illustrative case examples from servitization and circular business models to develop the concept of institutional confluence serving sustainable servitization. The study offers strategic insights for managers and policymakers, emphasizing the need for a holistic approach that integrates servitization and circularity from the outset of business model design. It advocates for policies that leverage regulatory, normative, and mimetic pressures to foster sustainable business practices. The article contributes to the servitization literature by delineating the mechanisms through which institutional forces facilitate or hinder the integration of servitization and circularity, offering directions for future research to explore these dynamics across different contexts and industries.
•Management scholars have tended to view the uptake of servitized circular business model frameworks through an internal business model lens, with firm-level innovation capabilities. We look beyond the focal company and consider how business model development interacts with wider societal development.•This paper utilizes institutional influences as explanatory drivers for this process.•The paper introduces the concept of institutional ‘confluence’, a mutually reinforcing process of interactivity between institutional pressures, for servitized circularity.•Policymakers are encouraged to enhance normative socio-cultural pressures for servitized circularity.
The present study examines the alliance learning literature in these uncertain times, which highlights the importance of alliance learning that takes place across organizational boundaries within a ...variety of business ecosystems. The study builds on a literature review of 198 articles and uses bibliographic coupling to identify four sub-streams of alliance learning research: 1) learning in strategic alliances, 2) relationship learning, 3) learning in innovation networks, and 4) learning in social networks. We review and analyze the alliance learning research streams, identify gaps, and develop a research agenda for alliance learning research.
•The study highlights the importance of alliance learning in uncertain times.•We use a bibliographic coupling of 198 articles to identify four sub-streams of alliance learning research.•The sub-streams of alliance learning research are reviewed to identify gaps, and to develop a research agenda.
The present study scrutinizes how an incumbent solution provider executes smart solution development (SSD). We aim to contribute to digital servitization research, which primarily focuses on either ...product, service, or software development, thus overlooking the integrative aspect of SSD. We unfold the holistic SSD development process in a single case study through 23 manager interviews, observational data, and strategic document analysis. The study extends the product-service innovations (PSI) literature by 1) identifying a set of innovation routines, such as collaborative, customer-focused, and decision-making, 2) demonstrating innovation management processes and practices associated with those routines, and 3) highlighting the co-alignment of innovation processes, routines, and practices to achieve improved outcomes from SSD. The study translates the empirical work into a framework and a set of propositions to guide future research. For managers, the study provides a framework and a set of capability-enhancing practices for a benchmark.
•The single case study of Wärtsilä Corporation investigates how incumbent firms align their innovation processes, routines, and practices to facilitate smart solution development (SSD).•The present study lists altogether 14 innovation routines that help firm to overcome challenges regarding product, service, and software integration.•These routines are categorized into collaborative, customer-focused, and decision-making routines.•Firms can consider a synchronized innovation process instead of tailored models for new products, services, and software.
PurposeThis paper studies the Digital Service Innovation (DSI) concept by systematically reviewing earlier studies from various scholarly communities. This study aims to recognize how recent advances ...in DSI literature from different research streams complement and can be incorporated into the growing digital servitization literature to define better and understand DSI.Design/methodology/approachAfter systematically identifying 123 relevant articles, this study employed complementary methods, such as author bibliographic coupling, linguistic text mining/textual analysis and qualitative content analyses.FindingsThis paper first maps the intellectual structure and boundaries of the DSI-related communities and qualitatively assesses their characteristics. These communities are (1) Innovation for digital servitization, (2) Service innovation in the digital age and (3) Adoption of novel e-services enabled by information system development. Next, the composition of the DSI concept is examined and depicted to comprehend the notion's critical dimensions. The findings discuss the range of theories and methods in the existing research, including antecedents, processes and outcomes of DSI.Originality/valueThis study reviews, extends the understanding of origins and critically evaluates DSI-related research. Moreover, the paper redefines and clarifies the structure and boundaries of the DSI-concept. In doing so, it elaborates on the substance of DSI and identifies the essential themes for its understanding and conceptualization. Thus, the study helps the future development of the concept and allows knowledge accumulation by bridging adjacent research communities. It helps researchers and managers navigate the foggy emerging research landscape.
Resource realignment in servitization Huikkola, Tuomas; Kohtamäki, Marko; Rabetino, Rodrigo
Research technology management,
07/2016, Volume:
59, Issue:
4
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
When transitioning from a product-centered business model to one focusing on providing services and solutions, manufacturers must realign and reallocate resources to support the new business model. ...Based on a study of nine leading solution providers that have successfully transitioned from products to services, we demonstrate how manufacturers create new resources and organizational structures to facilitate co-creation of value with customers, leverage existing resources to develop new service products and markets, and systematically release non-core upstream resources to nurture downstream resources.
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