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Intra-Firm and Inter-Firm Challenges in Servitization Ecosystem: Experiences from Five Product-Centric Firms in Different Industries

Part of: Product-Service-System (PSS) Design

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 July 2019

Koteshwar Chirumalla ,
Oyetola Emmanuel-Ebikake ,
Luna Leoni  and
Mohsen Servati
Koteshwar Chirumalla*
Affiliation:
Mälardalen University;
Oyetola Emmanuel-Ebikake
Affiliation:
Edge Hill University;
Luna Leoni
Affiliation:
Tor Vergata University of Rome;
Mohsen Servati
Affiliation:
Jönköping University
*
Contact: Chirumalla, Koteshwar Mälardalen University, Innovation and Product Realisation Sweden koteshwar.chirumalla@mdh.se

Abstract

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The purpose of this paper is to analyse the challenges in the servitization journey of product-centric firms from an ecosystem perspective, considering both intra-firm and inter-firm levels. Prior research addresses the challenges of servitization in many sectors from different perspectives. However, the majority of studies primarily focus on the provider of an offering. There is a lack of in-depth studies on analysing servitization challenges from the broader set of network actors including customers, suppliers, and sub-suppliers at the intra-firm and inter-firm levels. A multiple case study method was used to analyse five product-centric firms from different industries that were engaged in servitization. At intra- firm level, our analysis shows that ‘coordination’ is a major challenge for the provider, supplier, and sub-suppliers, and that ‘uncertainty’ and ‘risk’ is a major challenge for the provider, customer, and supplier. At inter-firm level, ‘partnership management’ found to be a most significant challenge for provider, customer, supplier, and sub-suppliers. The study contributes to the discussion of the relational view approach for servitization research.

Keywords

Product-Service Systems (PSS)Circular economyBusiness models and considerations
Type
Article
Information
Proceedings of the Design Society: International Conference on Engineering Design , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , July 2019 , pp. 3071 - 3080
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2019

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