Transforming into a platform provider: strategic options for industrial smart service providers

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to identify strategic options and challenges that arise when an industrial firm moves from providing smart service toward providing a platform.Design/methodology/approachThis conceptual study takes on a multidisciplinary research perspective that integrates concepts, theories and insights from service management and marketing, information systems and platform economics.FindingsThe paper outlines three platform types – smart data platform, smart product platform and matching platform – as strategic options for firms that wish to evolve from smart service providers to platform providers.Research limitations/implicationsInvestigating smart service platforms calls for launching interdisciplinary research initiatives. Promising research avenues are outlined to span boundaries that separate different research disciplines today.Practical implicationsManaging a successful transition from providing smart service toward providing a platform requires making significant investments in IT, platform-related capabilities and skills, as well as implement new approaches toward relationship management and brand-building.Originality/valueThe findings described in this paper are valuable to researchers in multiple disciplines seeking to develop and to justify theory related to platforms in industrial scenarios.

Digital service innovation: a paradigm shift in technological innovation

“…By accessing/acquiring valuable knowledge from customers, this type of innovation opens up the firm's innovation possibility frontiers in industrial services. On the one hand, by streamlining real-time customer data collection and integration in the firm's information system (Schroeder et al, 2019) and, on the other, by providing efficient tools to monitor, optimize and automatize the product's functions, remotely and globally (Beverungen et al, 2021). This promotes the development of innovative digital service offerings (based on consumer patterns) in industrial contexts, enabling manufacturing firms to align business model component configurations dynamically with customers' needs (Porter and Heppelmann, 2015;Helkkula et al, 2018;Kohtam€ aki et al, 2020).…”

Creating customer value from data: foundations and archetypes of analytics-based services

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Drei Strategien zur Etablierung digitaler Plattformen in der Industrie

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