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Reversed servitization paths: a case analysis of two manufacturers

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Abstract

The literature on service business in manufacturing companies posits that manufacturers “servitize” by increasing the proportion of services offered. This study presents two paths that are contrary to such forward-unidirectional servitization, indicating “reversed servitization.” In the first case, a capital goods manufacturer lost visibility to its installed base due to evolving product technology. We use the case of photocopier manufacturer Xerox to support our findings; a regulation change forced Xerox to move from a service-based toward a product-based business model. We thus propose that influencing environmental factors need to be researched and that the literature of organizational ecology may serve as a complementary perspective.

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Notes

  1. We tested multiple combinations of keywords in ABI/INFORM (ProQuest), Academic Search Elite and Business Source Complete (EBSCO), Emerald Journals, IEEE/IEE, JSTOR, SAGE, Science Direct (Elsevier), and SpringerLink databases. In comparing different databases, we recognized that results varied greatly. Aiming at both good coverage and a manageable number of good quality articles, we chose to use ISI because citation indexing is generally considered as a way to measure academic quality, and ISI lists all indexed journals from other databases. The chosen search string provided us with the most condensed set of relevant articles (N = 39):

    Topic = (servitization) OR Topic = (servitisation) OR Topic = ("service infusion") OR Topic = (service strateg*) AND Topic = (manufact*)

    Refined by: Topic = (transition) AND Web of Science Categories = (MANAGEMENT OR BUSINESS) AND Document Types = (ARTICLE)

    Timespan = All Years. Databases = SCI-EXPANDED, SSCI, CPCI-SSHDate of retrieval = September 2012.

  2. We noted the absence of six highly relevant articles and tried broader keywords; the results were less focused but still lacked these studies, which we therefore included in the sample: Vandermerwe and Rada (1988) introduced the term servitization. Mathieu (2001a) made the distinction between product oriented and customer supporting services. Davies (2003) noted that while manufacturers extend downstream, service providers extend upstream. Baines et al. (2009a) provided a systematic literature review of servitization. Geum et al. (2011) developed a road map for the practical execution of servitization. Turunen (2011) described the more versatile ways to achieve servitization.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Aalto University, School of Science, P.O. Box 15500, 00076, Aalto, Finland

    Max Finne, Saara Brax & Jan Holmström

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  1. Max Finne
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  2. Saara Brax
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Correspondence to Max Finne.

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Finne, M., Brax, S. & Holmström, J. Reversed servitization paths: a case analysis of two manufacturers. Serv Bus 7, 513–537 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11628-013-0182-1

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