Heiko Gebauer

• Professor
• Visiting professor at Linköping University

Demographic shifts in organisations create an urgent knowledge management challenge: as experienced employees retire, their specialised knowledge must transfer to younger workers. This transition drives small- and medium-sized enterprises (SME) to move from intuitive to data-driven decision-making. We examine how SMEs can leverage data as a strateg...

Purpose: This paper investigates how a service-centric Business Model Innovation (BMI) of a selected health care equipment manufacturer unfolds across main geographic. Methodology: An in-depth qualitative research study together with a single health care equipment manufacturer was conducted. Hereby, a discovery-oriented, theories-in-use approach wa...

To leverage the opportunities provided by the Internet of things, product-based companies are exploring new data-driven business opportunities. These opportunities, however, are likely to be missed due to data privacy challenges. These challenges start with the customers of product companies, extend to the wider business ecosystem, and continue wit...

The Internet of Things (IoT) offers product companies the opportunity to develop an IoT business. Existing performance measurement systems (PMS) are unsuitable for measuring and managing the business logic of IoT business. Based on research conducted with 31 product companies, we present three measurement traps, a key performance indicators (KPI) s...

Purpose: The emergence of Internet of Things (IoT) platforms in product companies opens up new data-driven business opportunities. This paper looks at the emergence of these IoT platforms from a business-model perspective. Design/methodology/approach: The study applies a mixed method with two research studies: Study I–a cluster analysis based on a...

To achieve long-term business success, purpose for associates, and acceptance in today’s societies, business leaders must keep a close eye on social and environmental dimensions in addition to the prerequisite of attaining adequate profits. This is especially true during times of major technological transformations. A fascinating breakthrough techn...

Unternehmensberatungen, Marktforschungsinstitute und Technologie-Evangelisten haben sich in den letzten Jahren mit positiven Prognosen zum enormen Geschäftspotenzial im Internet der Dinge (aus dem Englischen Internet of Things, IoT) gegenseitig übertroffen. In der Tat eröffnen vernetzte IoT-Lösungen neue Geschäftspotenziale und sind derzeit im Begr...

Overview In the era of digitalization, manufacturing firms find it difficult to assess what is “the right” digital business model. To avoid common digitalization traps, company leaders and managers need to carefully assess each business model opportunity before committing to implementation and commercialization. We present insights from our case st...

Equipment manufacturers are currently utilizing new digital technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence, or Big Data, for new digital offerings. However, these offerings seldom enhance revenue, because companies struggle with business model (BM) dynamics. By analyzing 27 companies through an explorative case-study app...

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...

The Internet of Things (IoT) enables new business opportunities for industrial companies in the Business-to-Business (B2B) context. Many companies invest into the development of data-driven business models around IoT platforms. However, there is still little systematic research on the characteristics of these business models. Based on a quantitativ...

Trotz der Möglichkeiten zur Umsatzsteigerung durch digitale Angebote stehen Unternehmen oftmals dem Digitalisierungsparadox gegenüber. Dieses Paradox bedeutet, dass Unternehmen zwar in die Digitalisierung investieren, aber nicht die erwartete Umsatzsteigerung erzielen. Auf Basis von Fallstudien in 52 Unternehmen werden drei Wachstumspfade beschrieb...

Technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT) are offering new opportunities and posing serious challenges to firms, forcing them to create entirely new business models, migrating from the conventional product-centric approaches to (digitally-based) service-oriented ones. This paper – following a qualitative research method – aims at describing th...

For over three decades now, several product companies around the world have been undertaking servitization paths. They have been devoting growing and substantial efforts to expand their service business. Expanding the service business in addition to their traditional core product business secures long-term growth and strengthens competitive advanta...

The present study investigates the effect of the interaction between digitalization and servitization on the financial performance of manufacturing companies. We challenge the simple linear assumption between digitalization and financial performance with a sample of 131 manufacturing firms and hypothesize a nonlinear U-shaped interaction effect bet...

Despite the demonstrated opportunities for revenue enhancement through digitalization, companies often experience a digitalization paradox. This paradox suggests that although companies may invest in digitalization, they often fail to achieve the expected revenue enhancement. In reporting research on 52 companies, we make the following four contrib...

The base-of-the-pyramid (BoP) concept plays a prominent role among the market-based perspectives for poverty alleviation. Previous literature reviews discuss the evolution of the BoP concept as a research domain; however, several major research streams that approach the phenomenon from distinct angles have been overlooked. To address these shortcom...

In this article, the authors extend the current literature on servitization by taking a configurational perspective, aiming to understand the interplay between the drivers (conditions) that lead to certain equifinal outcomes of servitization. By taking stock of the servitization literature using the contingency theory of strategy as a foundational...

Unternehmensberatungen, Marktforschungsinstitute und Technologie-Evangelisten haben sich in den letzten Jahren mit positiven Prognosen zum enormen Geschäftspotenzial im Internet der Dinge (aus dem Englischen Internet of Things, IoT) gegenseitig übertroffen. In der Tat eröffnen vernetzte IoT-Lösungen neue Geschäftspotenziale und sind derzeit im Begr...

Despite the demonstrated opportunities for revenue enhancement through digitalization, companies often experience a digitalization paradox. This paradox suggests that although companies invest in digitalization, they often fail to achieve the expected revenue enhancement. By reporting research on 52 companies, this article makes the following contr...

The present study intends to extend the discussion about digital servitization business models from the perspective of the theory of the firm. We utilize four theories of the firm, the Industrial Organization (IO), Resource-Based View (RBV), Organizational Identity (OI), and Transaction Cost Approach (TCA) to understand digital servitization busine...

Servitization describes the addition of services to manufacturers' core product offerings to create additional customer value. This study aims to identify the key themes and research priorities in this body of literature over thirteen years from 2005 and 2017, based on four major research streams (general management, marketing, operations, and serv...

Servitization describes the addition of services to manufacturers' core product offerings to create additional customer value. This study aims to identify the key themes and research priorities in this body of literature over thirteen years from 2005 and 2017, based on four major research streams (general management, marketing, operations, and serv...

The provision of basic services is falling short in informal settlements of cities in the Global South. In particular, public utilities have had difficulties expanding their services to the urban poor. Why is this the case despite utilities having improved their capabilities substantially over the last years? This paper investigates how innovation...

By studying servitization processes and service competencies in the wind-to-energy industry in European regions, this paper provides a framework for territorial servitization. The framework resonates with the concepts of knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) and industry life cycles, and its elements can be embedded into concepts of regional...

Seit Jahren verändern die Energiewende, ein gestärktes Kundenbewusstsein, permanente Preisvergleiche, das Vordringen digitaler Technologien und die Elektromobilität das Wettbewerbsumfeld unserer Stadtwerke und regionalen Energieversorgungsunternehmen (EVUs). Es entstehen neue Geschäftsmöglichkeiten in neuen Kundensegmenten und mit neuen Anwendungen...

This chapter introduces a tool to measure and assess a firm’s capacity for servitization. The instrument consists of 48 statements covering three organizational factors that play a crucial role in the successful transition toward services: (1) capabilities for service development, (2) capabilities for service deployment and (3) the service orientat...

People in Base of the Pyramid markets still face difficulties when it comes to sanitation. Container-based Sanitation (CBS) services represent a promising advanced sanitation service. Despite the observed outcomes of CBS services, organizations face obstacles when providing these services. To overcome these obstacles, digital transformations of the...

Our investigation draws on a qualitative study, which explores the anomaly of Born Solution Providers. Compared to the traditional assumption that product companies shift toward solutions during the maturity phase, companies can already offer solutions in the market development phase. We investigate the dynamic capabilities for providing solutions...

Providing socially beneficial services to people living close to the poverty line is an exceptionally complex task, due to limited disposable income for such services and little knowledge to understand the actual service benefits. In addition, service providers face capability constraints to provide these types of services. This article examines ca...

Purpose Open service innovation is an emergent new service development practice, where knowledge on how to organize development work is scarce. The purpose of the present research is to identify and describe relevant archetypes of open service innovation. The study views an archetype as an organizing template that includes the competence of partic...

Purpose Despite the opportunities provided by pay-per-use (PPU) services, product companies in business-to-business sectors often fail to compete systematically by using them. The purpose of this paper is to explain how companies can avoid failures when it comes to PPU services. The paper describes the “seizing” capabilities needed to achieve the s...

Purpose This paper aims to highlight how initial business models can be converted into a larger-scale solution for tapping into the emerging base-of-the-pyramid markets. Design/methodology/approach This study uses a qualitative, multi-case research design with 20 organizations tapping into the water market at the base-of-the-pyramid. Findings Thi...

Neuen Technologien wie Industrie 4.0 führen zu neuen dienstleistungsorientierten Geschäftsmodellen. Für die Umsetzung der Geschäftsmodelle gelten folgende Empfehlungen: Denken in Kundenprozessen, Fokus auf Kostensenkung und einzelnen Lösungen, Denken in komplexen Wertschöpfungssystemen und Kommerzialisierung der Lösungen auch mittels der Gründung e...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop a typology of management innovations. Design/methodology/approach The authors apply a multiple-case (embedded) design, with each organization representing a case, which entails a few embedded units of analysis. Case studies are about the base-of-the-pyramid (BoP) initiatives, during which all organ...

Purpose: Manufacturers experience difficulty to move successfully towards offering PSS, yet the majority of methodologies emphasize the development of new services without considering the capacity of the company to extend into the service business. The aim of this study is to develop a framework that can be used as a diagnostic tool by both researc...

West, S. (Ed.), Gebauer, H. (Ed.), & Baines, T. (2017).Proceedings of the Spring Servitization Conference: internationalisation through servitization.

Many barriers must be overcome when entering the base-of-the-pyramid (BoP) market. Firms facing these barriers need to innovate new business models and reinvent existing ones to suit the BoP context. While previous literature has focused on the innovations of particular components of business models in BoP markets, we investigate the reconfiguratio...

Service innovation is often viewed as a process of accessing the necessary resources, (re)combining them, and converting them into new services. The current knowledge on success factors for service innovation, such as formalized new service development (NSD) processes, predominantly comes from studying large firms with a relatively stable resource...

Service growth in product firms is one of the most active service research domains and is open to a variety of conceptualizations. This article provides a critical inquiry into the past, present, and future of the research domain. The evolution of the research on service growth is discussed in two phases: (1) setting the boundaries of the research...

The toilets used most in informal urban settlements have detrimental consequences for the environment and human health due to the lack of proper collection and treatment of toilet waste. Concepts for safe, sustainable and affordable sanitation systems exist, but their feasibility and acceptance have to be investigated at an early stage of developme...

Supplementary material

Purpose This paper aims to illustrate how managing multiple business models can become a key factor for succeeding in base-of-the-pyramid markets. Design/methodology/approach Case study was conducted through an engaged scholarship approach. Findings The authors highlight that companies can manage multiple business models, if they are following th...

The topic of servitization has generated a considerable body of research and many conferences, as well as industry engagement. Yet, despite the extensive literature associated with this now-mature discipline, there is no broad-based consensus on the core concepts and definitions deployed by servitization scholars, and both terminology and usage oft...

Pay-per-use services are an interesting phenomenon, both empirically and theoretically. Despite the alleged benefits, companies still struggle to succeed with pay-per-use services. Theoretically, it is common sense that existing service capabilities cannot easily be converted into organizational capabilities for pay-per-use services. Based on multi...

By representing the servitization of three leading corporations via a strategy map, this multiple-case study discusses how the strategic logic of servitization can be explained by linking the key practices adopted by manufacturers to support critical processes while shifting their focus to project-based customer solutions. The results draw on data...

There is little empirical evidence on the resources and capabilities needed to provide services in the early phase of the industry life cycle. Using case studies and interviews, we develop a resource–capability framework for services in the early industry life cycle. There are four critical resources to developing service successfully in this phase...

Services in product-oriented companies have become one of the most active research areas in the service domain. Practitioners have become advocates for service business development. Research domain on services in product-oriented companies remains open to a variety of conceptualizations and interpretations such as hybrid offerings, solution provide...

A firm's competitive advantage originates increasingly from absorbing external knowledge. Absorbing external knowledge and the underlying learning processes are referred to as a company's absorptive capacity. In this article, we outline research trends on absorptive capacity. We apply a bibliometric analysis to describe the concept's historical dev...

Det er en ny trend blant ledere og markedsførere å involvere kundene i tjenesteproduksjonen og leveransen. Fenomenet kalles blant annet «co-production» og «co-creation». I denne artikkelen kaller vi det for kundedelaktighet. Fenomenet har vist seg effektivt for å redusere kostnader ved at kundene i større grad blir trukket inn i produksjonsprosesse...

Both academics and practitioners emphasize the importance for product firms of implementing service-led growth strategies. The service transition concept is well established, namely a unidirectional repositioning along a product-service continuum—from basic, product-oriented services towards more customized, process-oriented ones—ultimately leading...

The sanitation concept ‘Blue Diversion’ (www.bluediversiontoilet.com) was developed as a possible answer to the sanitation crisis in urban slums. It is based on two main elements: (1) diversion of urine, feces, and water at the source as the basis for efficient resource recovery, and (2) linking different scales (family toilets and semi-centralized...

Despite investment stimulated by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), sanitation-related diseases, such as diarrhea, cholera and typhus, remain a leading cause of death of children under five in low-income countries. Prevention of diarrhea requires a combination of access to safe drinking water, good hygiene and adequate sanitation. The sanitat...

Higher market complexity and increasing competition are forcing traditional manufacturers to rethink their traditional business strategy. New growth potential and lucrative margins in the service business tempt companies to extend their traditional products business by services and so, change their position in the product-service continuum. But, wh...

There is a trend to focus on value creation and to exchange the output between supplier and customer through different activities. The trend ion value creation s describe through various notions such as servicification, service-dominant logic, or prosumption. Understanding value creation is not only beneficial in highly competitive industries, but...

Purpose – The article aims to combine research priorities in the service domain with the emerging topic of service management for the base of the pyramid (BoP). This combination allows us to construct an agenda for service research at the BoP. Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses bibliographic methods for structuring the BoP contributions,...

Purpose – Information and communication technology (ICT) is a key enabler for new product- and process-oriented services. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how ICT can enable service differentiation and, in doing so, act as a catalyst for a service business orientation. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on a qualitative, mu...

The move being made by manufacturers of capital goods from offering products to solutions implies that they must make a decision as to whether the capabilities necessary for providing solutions should be developed internally or externally. However, research has often implied an internal capability development option, and focused mostly on multinati...

Purpose – The paper aims to provide a better understanding of the interrelatedness of customer and service orientations in the organizational structures of capital goods manufacturing companies. Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative, multi-case research design was employed using 36 European capital goods manufacturing companies. Findings –...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of organisational capabilities (dynamic and operational) in the formation of value networks in the context of public transport services. Design/methodology/approach – The theoretical argument is substantiated with qualitative data from four narratives on value network formations in the Swis...

How can manufacturers of capital goods succeed in service business development? What are the potential network approaches for manufacturing companies planning on extending their service business? Over the last decade, the business environment of capital goods manufacturers has changed dramatically. Few capital goods manufacturers are able to outrun...

Purpose: Investigating how the separation of the product and service business mediates the effect of management’s commitment to the service strategy on service performance in product manufacturing firms. Methodology: We surveyed 216 European manufacturers in the high-value durable equipment industry moving into the service business. After assessing...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the intentional formation of business networks in the wastewater industry. It enriches the theory‐building of the formation of business networks by drawing on theoretical contributions to business networks and capabilities. The paper describes, assesses and predicts scenarios relevant to the forma...

Purpose ‐ The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of key research contributions on the topic of service strategies in manufacturing by focusing on descriptions of the phenomenon and theoretical explanations of its evolution and financial consequences. Design/methodology/approach ‐ A summary analysis of the extant literature is provided. Va...

The current paper focuses on absorptive capacity in the context of strategic innovation. Strategic innovation aims at a re-conceptualisation of business models, the creation of uncontested market spaces, and leaps in customer value. By using the learning-process perspective of absorptive capacity (exploratory, assimilative, transformative, and expl...

The aim of this paper is to describe and further develop existing models of service transition; that is, how companies position and move on the goods-to-services continuum. This study concludes that service transition can be profitable for manufacturing firms as long as they do not become stuck in a mismatch between their organisational arrangement...

Purpose: This article explores service business development by small- and medium-sized equipment manufacturers (SMEMs). It focuses on underlying dynamic and operational capabilities in service business development.Design/Methodology/Approach: The research design is based on case study research with nine companies from Germany, Italy, Sweden, and Sw...

This paper examines the relationship among the complexity of customer needs, customer centricity, innovativeness, service differentiation, and business performance within the context of companies that have made a service transition from pure goods providers to service providers. A survey of 332 manufacturing companies provides the basis for the emp...

Companies that find innovative ways to manage capabilities gain competitive advantages. The results of multiple case studies of capital goods manufacturing companies suggest that management innovation contributes to dynamic capabilities. The findings confirm the importance of sensing, seizing, and reconfiguring as dynamic capabilities. Management i...

The authors would like to thank the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) for supporting Heiko Gebauer's research. They would like to express their deep gratitude to Maureen Sondell for her language editing services. This article is part of the special issue: “Supply chain networks in emerging markets” guest edited by Harri Lorentz, Yongjiang Shi...

Purpose Literature is relatively sparse on describing how companies should align their determinants for service innovations with their different types of service strategies. This study seeks to explore the alignment between three types of service strategies and determinants for service innovations. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative, multi‐...

Purpose The article aims to investigate how product manufacturing firms can configure their global service approach. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative, multi‐case research design was employed. Findings The following four global service approaches could be identified: integrated and ethnocentric; integrated and polycentric; separated and p...

Purpose This article discusses the common factors and hindrances of service innovation. Our purpose is to add a managerial perspective on service innovation. Design/methodology/approach Multiple case studies on international firms that create competitive advantage through service innovation leadership are the main tool of theory development. Find...

Purpose This paper seeks to utilise Prahalad's five activities of co‐creation (customer engagement, self‐service, customer involvement, problem‐solving, and co‐design) to explore how value co‐creation occurs in the context of a public‐transport service provider. Design/methodology/approach The paper is based on a single qualitative case study of t...

Purpose The paper aims to explore how dynamic capabilities of sensing, seizing and reconfiguring shape the way in which service business is developed in a broad range of capital goods industries. Design/methodology/approach The paper takes an interpretative multiple‐case study approach. It seeks to develop primary organizing themes around the key...

A new trend seems to be emerging for multinational manufacturing companies to make a strategic reorientation into becoming service providers. For some companies, such as Kone and IBM, the revenues from services are 50% or more of their total sales. Despite the increasing interest in exploring various aspects of the service part of the business in m...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine if there is a relationship between the interdependence among different components of service culture and performance. This paper also contributes to the discussion on how integrating or separating the service organization from the product organization interacts with service culture. Design/methodolog...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to focus on how small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) from the capital goods manufacturing sector develop the service business. Assuming the service business development depends on contingency factors, the paper aims to explore how SMEs align external environment, strategy and organizational design. Design...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the patterns of service strategy changes in manufacturing firms and indicates how each pattern is interrelated with modifications in organizational design elements. Design/methodology/approach The paper draws on a longitudinal study using a survey of 97 manufacturers of capital goods. In addition, 15...

Herausforderungen wie kürzer werdende Technologiezyklen, steigende Wettbewerbsintensität auf globalen Märkten, erhöhter Druck auf Produktmargen und zunehmende Homogenisierung von Produkten führen viele Hersteller von Investitionsgütern zu einer strategischen Neuorientierung und dem Ausbau des Dienstleistungsgeschäfts. Zwei Stossrichtungen in diesem...

There is a trend to focus on value creation and to exchange the output between supplier and customer through different activities. The trend ion value creation s describe through various notions such as servicification, service-dominant logic, or prosumption. Understanding value creation is not only beneficial in highly competitive industries, but...

Purpose The paper aims to provide guidance for managers seeking to successfully position their products in the Chinese mid‐market segment. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected and analyzed from about 25 international and Chinese manufacturing companies. Findings Findings identify barriers and key success factors and give guidance for i...

This study concentrates on the alignment of service strategies with organizational design factors. Properly aligned, these elements will form specific strategic configurations which correspond with certain types of value creation strategies. In other words, each value creation strategy consists of a specific customer value proposition and the requi...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to attempt to explore service needs in the Chinese manufacturing industry and address the research question: what clusters of service needs exist in the Chinese manufacturing industry? Design/methodology/approach – The data on service needs were collected between 2006 and 2007. The data collection was done thr...

Despite high interest in how organizational structures facilitate service orientation in capital goods manufacturing companies, researchers have neglected this field. This article explores four different organizational approaches contributing to service orientation. The four types are termed (1) product SBU, (2) product-service SBU, (3) service-pro...

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to illustrate the management policies behind the success of Swiss product‐manufacturing companies in international competition. Design/methodology/approach – The study included a few multinational corporations as well as a large number of “hidden champions”. Findings – The study has led to three management...

Purpose This article seeks to answer the following research question: How does the focus of attention and situated attention contribute to the formulation and implementation of the service orientation in the business strategy? Design/methodology/approach Structural equation modelling is used as a research methodology. Findings The paper suggests...

Purpose The paper aims to provide a better understanding of the interrelatedness of customer and service orientations in the organizational structures of capital goods manufacturing companies. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative, multi‐case research design was employed using 36 European capital goods manufacturing companies. Findings This a...