Ali Ziaee Bigdeli

Aston University · The Advanced Services Group

Navigating economic, strategic, knowledge and relational value that can be created and captured by advanced services. This chapter dives into the link between the compensation to providers and the value for customers. Revenue models, such as subscription, pay-per-use and pay-per-outcome are explained, including how ownership and such revenue models...

Delivering outcomes enabled by products. Chapter 4 explores the broader system that is needed to deliver advanced services. The practices that support such service delivery are packaged into eight key lessons that cover a firm’s strategic orientation, performance measures, product and service designs, business processes, facilities, partnerships, d...

Executives will only invest if they are convinced of the opportunity. Chapter 5 puts forward the financial arguments. Servitization is likely to enhance a firm’s financial performance by boosting its revenue, profitability, and productivity, and it is also likely to stimulate economic growth through new market channels, international trade, and int...

How should a firm that has traditionally made its way in the world by producing and selling products set about servitization? This chapter provides a rational framework to guide a firm through the development and execution of a successful servitization programme. It summarises the enablers of success and highlights resources most relevant to this j...

This chapter of the book revisits key insights, lessons and principles that have emerged around how to go about embracing servitization so businesses can compete through more advanced services. In looking into the future, the authors leave readers with this advice: run your business based on outcomes. Think about the outcomes for your customers, th...

Executives are motivated to change when they see others doing just that. This chapter is aimed at giving them confidence that servitization is happening and how. The authors share findings from their international research programme examining businesses that are adopting servitization. Insights about the transformation process that firms go through...

Summarising the arguments and results currently available, Chapter 6 takes the position of an industrial firm seeking to compete through services by reducing dependency on product-centric business models. Compelling evidence suggests servitization can help firms become more resilient to competition, navigate economic disruptions effectively, and co...

You can’t sell servitization! this chapter clarifies the concept of servitization by focusing on integrated products-service system and explains advanced services as an outcome-based business model. The business model framework unpacks what a customer actually receives and how they will typically pay, and a services staircase is used to explain the...

The purpose of the study is to investigate how the value mechanisms of advanced services business models interact with each other in their post-implementation stage. To better understand these interactions, the study adopts Teece’s (2010) business model conceptualisation which integrates value creation, capture and delivery mechanisms in the form o...

Servitization increasingly requires the use of digital technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing, and predictive analytics. This paper investigates digital service innovations (DSIs) that use these technologies. Using a service innovation lens, it is distinguished from most prior servitization research through specifying DS...

Servitization describes a paradoxical and lengthy transformation process in the field of manufacturing, requiring manufacturers to move from competing on the basis of their products to competing on the basis of their services; yet the delivery of these services relies on the production of high-quality products. Such transformations may take several...

Disruption from the COVID-19 pandemic has caused major upheavals for manufacturing, and has severe implications for production networks, and the demand and supply chains underpinning manufacturing operations. This paper is the first of its kind to pull together research on both—the pandemic-related challenges and the management interventions in a m...

Manufacturers have shifted their focus from products to smart solutions in search of higher returns and additional growth opportunities. This shift, described as servitization, or lately as a digital servitization, is not a simple process. Academic study has revealed that its issues are complex, problematic, contingent, and even paradoxical, involv...

Purpose This paper explains how servitization disrupts long-established internal and external boundaries of product-focused manufacturers and investigates the root causes of servitization challenges. Design/methodology/approach The authors draw from the collective experiences of 20 senior executives from ten multinational manufacturers involved in...

Business models are becoming more inclined towards platforms, which allow inclusion of diverse participants to promote leveraged growth and modularity of offerings. Despite being closely linked, several aspects of platforms are often studied exclusively from their ecosystems, lacking integrative insights on the topic of platform ecosystems. Most st...

Recent economic transformations have forced companies to redefine their value propositions, increasing traditional product offerings with supplementary services—the so-called Product-Service System (PSS). Among them, the adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies is very common. However, the directions that companies are undertaking to offer new value t...

This study investigates how the social and technical subsystems of a platform ecosystem change and interact in the advanced services context. An integrated research approach results in the development of an analytical framework accounting for the four perspectives of - technical core, key actors, structural boundaries and tasks of a servitization-b...

The Spring Servitization Conference (#SSC2021) is dedicated to understanding how organisations can develop and adapt their business models through servitization and advances services. The theme will be Servitization: A Pathway towards a Resilient, Productive and Sustainable Future and will be held in Florence, Italy (in a 'blended mode' comprising...

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are at the heart of a nation’s wealth creation, employment generation and economic development. To help SMEs stay competitive in a fast-changing environment, researchers have recently emphasized the relevance of business model innovation (BMI). However, BMI and its performance are not linear but rather a co...

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to investigate how the Internet of Things (IoT) contributes to manufacturers' advanced services development and delivery. In order to better understand the creation of these IoT contributions, the study adopts a socio-technical research perspective, which expands the scope of the investigation and integrates t...

The integration of products and services into a bundled product/service offering by manufacturing organisations is seen as a global trend in today's competitive business environment. The shift of product-based manufacturers towards offering business solutions and value-added services to consumers is termed as 'Servitization'. Contrary to the potent...

Manufacturers are increasingly transforming through servitization, and the Internet of Things (IoT) is a crucial enabler of this transformation. Current literature describes the diverse outcomes from IoT that enable servitization but fails to explain the reasons behind the diversity and the processes manufacturers go through to create these outcome...

The study investigates how internal and external context factors impact a manufacturer’s servitization process (i.e. the strategic transformation from competing through products towards competing through services). A theoretical framework was developed that integrates a multi-stage conceptualisation of servitization with a focus on the wide range o...

Call For Papers for Handbook in Servitization

Research into organizational storytelling has been associated with engaging stakeholders from the outset, with the myth being the focus of much of this work. Yet, few methods exist based on myths that managers can use to engage stakeholders. For this paper, we have conducted a review into organizational myths adopting the lens of the practicing man...

The concept of servitization is well established in the literature, and yet the processes of organisational change that manufacturers undergo to compete through services have received much less attention. Therefore, this paper develops a model that enables a description of the servitization processes, the principal stages of organisational change,...

This study uses a business network perspective to investigate the industry 4.0 context with the internet of things (IoT) as its enabling technology and product-use data as its core network resource. A three-stage qualitative methodology (interviews, focus group, Delphi-based inquiry) was used to examine the case of an emergent IoT-based business ne...

This study reviews systematically the literature on the measurement of the firm-level degree of servitization. The results show that servitization measures are inconsistent across studies, even among those investigating similar research questions, and that a theoretical reference for their appropriate use is still missing. Focusing on these shortco...

Servitization generates implications for the manufacturers' value creation, delivery and capture processes and also for their customers and business partners. As individual studies have started to investigate the different value processes in servitization and the effects they have on the manufacturers' wider context, it becomes important to consoli...

Servitization is the process by which manufacturers transition to building revenue streams through services rather than solely through the sale of products. The development of new services offerings entails business model change and organizational transformation; these transformation processes remain poorly understood. To contribute knowledge to br...

This edited book intends to provide knowledge on tools and practices of servitization to facilitate the formulation and implementation of servitization-based strategies, service infusion and manufacturing service transition globally. Including 22 practically relevant contributions, this book aims to help scholars and practitioners seeking to facili...

Servitization is increasingly being adopted by manufacturers leading to new sources of value. Current research recognises the relevance of partnerships for the capture of value, but ignores the transformation stages. Manufacturers at different transformation stages have different servitization goals, hindering the applicability of the current theor...

The current research on Business Models (BMs) in servitization tends to focus on either identifying the key components of relevant BMs or examining the challenges of introducing such BMs. The creation of a BM is not a discrete event, but the result of a long-term continuous refinement effort. Redirecting the servitization research from concentratin...

The present study draws on the Information Systems (IS) artefact theory (Lee, Thomas, & Baskerville, 2015) to systematically conceptualize the IoT and investigate its contribution to the manufacturer's advanced services. The study employs qualitative methods to analyse the advanced services offerings of eight multinational manufacturers and identif...

This chapter introduces the book ‘Practices and Tools for Servitization: Managing Service Transition.’ In this chapter, we intend to frame servitization through a practice lens, in which servitization is viewed as-practice and in-practice. We discuss the practices in servitization and consider them as sayings and doings in a servitizing manufacturi...

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe the priority of the management challenges managers and leaders in service businesses have faced during the servitization journey. The paper builds upon the work presented by West, Schmitt and Siepen (2014), West and Gaiardelli (2017) and West and Gaiardelli (2016). This is an initial study with the...

The purpose of this paper is to establish a framework for assessing the progress and outcome of a manufacturer’s transformation towards becoming a provider of ‘advanced services’ – a complex bundling of products and services, whereby manufacturers offer capabilities and outcomes instead of products alone. ‘Advanced services’ represent the most comp...

Abstract. Servitization can include many kinds of processes and outcomes depending upon the contexts in which it occurs. This means that servitization is difficult to model accurately in simulations. Games, on the other hand, prioritize the provision of engaging experiences for participants over modelling realistic processes, while Serious Games ca...

Servitization implies a customer-centred approach, where value is enhanced through communication and interaction between the parties. The creation, delivery and capture of value in servitization have been widely analyzed within the supplier-customer dyad. However, when moving to a multi-actor level, a gap has been found regarding the challenges tha...

Digital technologies enable servitization by providing opportunities for the manufacturer to understand the product usage and condition, in customer’s operations. The present study seeks to validate the applicability of affordance actualization theory in order to help identify these opportunities. A systematic literature review of the extent servit...

For manufacturing firms, the integration of advanced services into their customer offerings has become a crucial decision. Such commercial decisions require weighting the risks and rewards of implementing a business model based on advanced services. While academic experts acknowledge uncertainty of returns on investment despite potential advantages...

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to develop a model, which illuminates the transformation journey towards servitization in the manufacturing context. Design/Methodology/Approach: This is a theoretical paper based on extensive review of literature on organisation change and transformation, and servitization. This was followed by a series of structu...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to consolidate the servitization knowledge base from an organizational change perspective, identifying developed, developing and undeveloped topics to provide a platform that directs future research. Design/methodology/approach This paper addresses three objectives: it comprehensively examines organizational ch...

Increasingly, manufacturing organizations compete by developing product-service systems rather than offering products alone. To transform themselves into providers of advanced services, however, product-centric manufacturing firms need to overcome a range of barriers. While previous studies have highlighted the teaching/learning potential of ‘gamif...

Purpose The need for a holistic framework for studying organisational transformation towards Servitization is implicit. This is particularly relevant as Servitization demands consideration of both business model and organisational change. The purpose of this paper is, therefore, to provide an integrative framework that systematically captures and e...

One of the main challenges of emergency management lies in communicating risks to the public. On some occasions, risk communicators might seek to increase awareness over emerging risks, while on others the aim might be to avoid escalation of public reactions. Social media accounts offer an opportunity to rapidly distribute critical information and...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to challenge the focal firm perspective of much resource/capability research, identifying how a dyadic perspective facilitates identification of capabilities required for servitization. Design/methodology/approach Exploratory study consisting of seven dyadic relationships in five sectors. Findings An additiona...

Purpose: Servitization and digitization together provide significant opportunities to raise the performance and profitability of the road transport industry. To date these opportunities are only sparsely captured and the potential economic, social and environmental value is forgone. We set out to investigate the barriers to capturing the value of s...

The research study described in this article seeks to bring to light the main evidence found concerning the adoption of the strategy of servitisation. The Delphi Method was used to collect statements and opinions from 33 high-ranking executives at 28 organisations of different sizes which represent an interesting cross section of the fabric of prod...

In recent years, the servitization of manufacturing has become a topic of interest to both academics and practitioners. Indeed, companies are realising that servitization is a way to enhance their competitive advantage and get closer to their customers. Several empirical studies have attempted to explain why and how to servitize. They provide impor...

Most prior new product diffusion (NPD) models do not specifically consider the role of the business model in the process. However, the context of NPD in today's market has been changed dramatically by the introduction of new business models. Through reinterpretation and extension, this paper empirically examines the feasibility of applying Bass-typ...

Most previous studies of university spinouts (USOs) have focused on what determines their formation from the perspectives of the entrepreneurs or of their parent universities. However, few studies have investigated how these entrepreneurial businesses actually grow and how their business models evolve in the process. This paper examines the evoluti...

Increasingly, manufacturing organizations compete through product service systems (PSS) rather than products alone. Though there is much work that demonstrates the benefits of servitization, many manufacturers have been reluctant to adopt this practice and remain product-oriented. Similarly, there are studies that indicate the potential for gamific...

OVERVIEW: Servitization represents a business-model change and organizational transformation from selling goods to selling an integrated combination of goods and services. Competitive advantage is one outcome of this shift. During servitization, companies follow stages to realize services as an opportunity to differentiate from goods and achieve hi...

As social media are becoming an important part of the open government agenda, there is need to systematically consider their role in emergency management. Government accounts on social media offer an opportunity to rapidly distribute critical information and in doing so to mitigate the impact of emergencies by influencing public reactions. This pap...

The need for a holistic framework for studying organisational transformation towards servitization is implicit. This is particularly relevant as servitization demands consideration of both business model and organisational change. The aim of this paper is to provide an integrative framework that systematically captures and evaluates existing litera...

The use of digital games and gamification has demonstrated potential to improve many aspects of how businesses provide training to staff, and communicate with consumers. However, there is still a need for better understanding of how the adoption of games and gasification would influence the process of decision-making in organisations across differe...

How social media can enable opportunities for collaboration between citizens and governments is an evolving issue in theory and practice. This paper examines the dynamic aspects of collaboration in the context of the 2011 riots in England. In August 2011, parts of London and other cities in England suffered from extensive disorder and even loss of...

The emergence of innovative and revolutionary Integration Technologies (IntTech) has highly influenced the Local Government Authorities (LGAs) in their decision-making process. LGAs that plan to adopt such IntTech may consider this as a serious investment. Advocates, however, claim that such IntTech have emerged to overcome the integration problems...

Purpose The dilemma of implementing and adopting inter‐organisational systems (IOS) that enable information sharing in an electronic fashion has been regarded as an inevitable issue for the public sector. The majority of previous studies have mainly focused on Central or Federal level organisations, and more importantly applied so‐called old fashio...

Most previous studies of university spinouts have focused on analysing what determines their formation and emergence, with few studies address whether and how university spinouts actually grow and reach operational and financial sustainability. Even fewer studies explored how, and whether it is possible, to scale up the operations in national and g...

This research attempts to develop a socio-technical framework for Inter-departmental Electronic Information Sharing (EIS) in Local Government Authorities (LGAs).

This study examines effects of microblogging communications during emergency events based on the case of the summer 2011 riots in London. During five days in August 2011, parts of London and other major cities in England suffered from extensive public disorders, violence and even loss of human lives. We collected and analysed the tweets posted by t...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is primarily to analyse the implementation of shared services models in business enterprises or private sector and the benefits realised, thereafter; to a greater extent, focusing on the lessons learnt from such operations and exploring the potential of applying similar models in the public sector. Design/method...