Del amor y el matrimonio

Within a given market, a service strategy defines how a company intends to compete with services (Raddats and Kowalkowski, 2014). Three generic service strategies available for industrial companies include equipment supplier, availability provider, and performance provider strategies (Kowalkowski, et al., 2015). This classification of service strategies corresponds, for example, with Helander and Möller (2007), Tukker (2004), and Windahl and Lakemond (2010), although the authors have labeled the distinct strategies differently. Tukker (2004) applied terms, such as product oriented, use oriented, and result oriented services, and Helander and Möller (2007) equipment/material supplier, solution provider, and performance provider to refer to different service strategies.

When a company is an equipment supplier, it mainly offers services that are directly linked to its products, and the company business model is still focused on product selling (Tukker, 2004). Availability provider refers to a strategy wherein services are regarded as a key differentiator in competition, and the service provider offers “availability” to customers throughout the product life-cycle (Helander and Möller, 2007). As a performance provider, the service provider takes over some of the customer processes, for example, through outsourcing, and agrees to offer results (i.e., “performance”) instead of products and services (Helander and Möller, 2007; Tukker, 2004).

Other ways to classify service strategies also exist. For example, Gebauer (2008) has classified the different service strategies to after-sales service, customer support, outsourcing partner, and development partner strategies. Although the first three strategies somewhat correspond with the equipment supplier, availability provider, and performance provider strategies discussed above, development partnership is presented as a separate strategy. Within the development partnership strategy, customers can benefit from service provider’s research and development competencies, which are offered as a service (Gebauer, 2008).

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More recently, Raddats & Kowalkowski (2014) suggested a generic typology for service strategies that is based on service doubters, service pragmatists, and service enthusiasts. Their classification is descriptive, and it is not based on particular services or service types but on how companies address different services as combinations. Accordingly, service enthusiasts are characterized by a strong focus on different services in general, service pragmatists are mainly focused on the product-related services of their own products, and service doubters have a low focus on all types of services (Raddats and Kowalkowski, 2014).

Based on their service strategy, companies determine the service categories that they offer to a given market (Raddats and Kowalkowski, 2014). Literature is abundant in showing the different types of services that companies can offer to their customers (e.g., Mathieu, 2001; Matthyssens and Vandenbempt, 2010; Rabetino, et al., 2015; Raddats and Easingwood, 2010; Raddats and Kowalkowski, 2014; Ulaga and Reinartz, 2011; Windahl and Lakemond, 2010). Based on a literature review of service offerings, Raddats & Kowalkowski (2014) provide an overview of the dimensions through which different offerings can be explored. They identified seven dimensions that are frequently applied in both literature and business practice:

1. Services to a supplier’s products vs. services to a customer’s processes 2. Transactional services vs. relational services

3. Individual services vs. bundled services 4. Standardized services vs. customized services 5. Input-based services vs. output-based services

6. Product-related services vs. product-independent services

7. Services on own products vs. services on own and others suppliers’ products

In each dimension, the latter types of services represent a more extensive and complex offering. Raddats & Kowalkowski (2014) note that in particular, the first five dimensions are often interrelated. That is, when a company makes a transition in one dimension, it presumably results in a transition in another dimension as well. Another way to classify services is to divide them into base, intermediate, and advanced services (see, Baines and Lightfoot, 2013). The more advanced the services, the more sophisticated and critical they are to customers’ core processes (Baines and Lightfoot, 2013). Further, advanced services are often based on more long-term contracts and charged by usage or performance (Baines and Lightfoot, 2013). Moreover, different service offerings can be classified based on the service

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content. Rabetino et al. (2015), for example, classified different life-cycle offerings into 11 main categories: administrative services, installed base services, consulting services, customer services, financial services, maintenance services, operational/outsourcing services, optimization services, research and development services, recycling services, and supply management and warehousing services. Of these, consulting, outsourcing, or optimization services can typically be classified into advanced services. In contrast, installed base services or customer services are typically base or intermediate services.

IIoT-based services form a specific offering category within the industrial services context. IIoT, or Industrial Internet as it is occasionally labeled, refers to the integration of physical machinery and devices, software, sensors, and analytics as a network that enables, for example, remote monitoring of the connected machinery and devices (e.g., Boyes, et al., 2018; Ehret and Wirtz, 2017; Kiel, et al., 2017). By using IIoT as a platform, industrial service providers can develop a wide range of services that are typically of advanced nature. As a term, IIoT is separated from IoT (Internet of things) to emphasize the use and deployment of IoT technologies in industrial settings (Boyes, et al., 2018).

Finally, solutions are a specific form of offering in the service growth literature. Solutions are usually depicted as broad and complex entities, which comprise a bundle of products, services, software, and knowledge elements that are integrated together to solve customer-specific problems (Nordin and Kowalkowski, 2010). Solutions are often differentiated from other services and products in terms of their complex integrated nature, customization, and relational character (Evanschitzky, et al., 2011). Instead of being merely combinations of different goods, services, and varying knowledge elements, they are often defined as relational processes between a customer and supplier (Tuli, et al., 2007). Moreover, it is expected that a solution provides more value than the sum of its components when offered stand-alone (Brax and Jonsson, 2009). Within service growth, solutions are sometimes regarded as the final stage in the servitization process because industrial firms are expected to eventually take over customers’ operations and thus become solution providers (Davies, 2004; Oliva and Kallenberg, 2003).