Servitization in global markets : role alignment in global service networks for advanced service provision

Abstract

This study investigates how global manufacturers offer advanced services, such as outcome-based contracts, to global customers. Offering advanced services requires companies to engage in and manage win–win collaborations with a diverse set of service network partners. However, there is currently a lack of insights into the value co-creation challenges faced by manufacturers’ R&D units and their service network partners. Equally, there is a pressing need for roles to be properly aligned when offering advanced services in global markets. Based on 34 exploratory interviews with respondents from two manufacturers and their six globally dispersed front-end service network partners, this study identifies diverse co-creation challenges related to the provision of advanced services in global markets. The results show that complex collaborations of this nature often do not lead to win–win relationships but rather to less understood win–lose or lose–win scenarios. Our proposed framework unpacks how to manage value co-creation challenges and establish win–win relationships through role alignment. This study’s findings show that the successful provision of advanced services requires manufacturers to play the role of global service orchestrators and service network partners to act as global service integrators. Thus, role alignment provides greater latitude to establish a joint sphere of value co-creation for back-end and front-end actors. We conclude by discussing this paper’s theoretical and practical contributions to the emerging literature on servitization in global markets and global service networks.