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Confronted by lower product sales prospects, increased margin pressures and customer demands for free service support, many firms are entering the service business. Yet most of these firms will be unable to scale their service operations to develop a viable stand‐alone services capability. In the rare cases where they are successful in establishing a services business it will often fail to deliver the expected profit margins. However, when properly planned and executed, a products to services business transformation generates impressive results. this paper aims to investigate this issue.

The paper defines how to scale services business. Key challenges and mitigation approaches as well as case studies are provided to effectively execute on services transformation. Various challenges and their effects are examined separately. Several tactics to overcome some of the key challenges identified.

When managed properly, new services businesses can deliver solid economic value to the top and bottom line. In order to capture this value, managers must look at services through a very different lens, understanding that this is a fundamentally different business model than their existing product business. It is recommended managing the entire services value chain to realize the full benefits of creating independent services revenue stream, increased product pull‐through, and deeper customer relationships.

By considering various obstacles a company faces in scaling services business, the paper provides insight into what strategies may be effective as established companies deal with balancing existing product‐centric business while scaling services business.

The purpose of this paper is to present exciting and innovative research questions in service operations that are aligned with eight key themes and related topics determined by the Journal of Service Management (JOSM) Service Operations Expert Research Panel. By offering a good number of such research questions, this paper provides a broad range of ideas to spur conceptual and empirical research related to service operations and encourage the continued creation of deep knowledge within the field, as well as collaborative research across disciplines that develops and incorporates insights from service operations.

Based on a Delphi study, described in the companion article, “Service Operations: What Have We Learned?,” the panel identified eight key research themes in service operations where leading-edge research is being done or has yet to be done (Victorino et al., 2018). In this paper, three or four topics within each theme are selected and multiple questions for each topic are proposed to guide research efforts. The topics and questions, while wide-ranging, are only representative of the many ongoing research opportunities related to service operations.

The field of service operations has many interesting research topics and questions that are largely unexplored. Furthermore, these research areas are not only increasingly integrative across multiple themes within operations but often transcend functional disciplines. This creates opportunities for ever more impactful research with a greater reach throughout the service system and suggests that service researchers, regardless of functional affiliation, can contribute to the ongoing conversation on the role of service operations in value creation.

Leveraging the collective knowledge of the JOSM Service Operations Expert Research Panel to expand on the research themes generated from the Delphi study, novel questions for future study are put forward. Recognizing that the number of potential research questions is virtually unlimited, summary questions by theme and topic are also provided. These questions represent a synopsis of the individual questions and can serve as a quick reference guide for researchers interested in pursuing new directions in conceptual and empirical research in service operations. This summary also serves as a framework to facilitate the formulation of additional research topics and questions.

The purpose of this paper is to theoretically articulate and empirically test an integrated model of capability antecedents and performance outcomes of servitization strategies. The authors characterize servitization strategies based on the offering of two types of services: basic services (BAS) and advanced services (ADS).

Hypotheses are tested based on statistical analyses of a large survey of manufacturers from different countries and sectors.

The authors find that manufacturing capabilities associate with the provision of BAS, while service capabilities associate with both BAS and ADS; BAS do not impact financial performance, but support the offering of ADS; there seem to be naturally occurring servitization trajectories involving the gradual development of balanced levels of BAS and ADS and adequate levels of manufacturing and service capabilities.

The findings on servitization trajectories are based on the observation of manufacturing business units at different stages of servitization (cross-sectional data).

Manufacturers wishing to servitize should distinguish between BAS and ADS and deploy a balanced adoption of BAS and ADS, using BAS as a platform. This should be accompanied with the building of appropriate capabilities.

This is one of the first studies to show an explicit link between different servitization strategies, capabilities, and servitization maturity. It provides new insights into the servitization paradox and servitization trajectories.

This study aims to investigate the contribution of knowledge-intensive business services firms to small- and medium-sized manufacturers’ digital servitization journeys, addressing the standardization versus customization dichotomy of services and solutions provision.

To identify the challenges that small- and medium-sized firms must face in the digital servitization journey and the role that knowledge-intensive business services firms may play in the innovation processes, the authors conduct a review on two still unrelated literature streams and develop a longitudinal single-case study, with a particular focus on knowledge generation mechanisms.

Digital servitization is a particularly challenging transformational journey for minor firms. Knowledge-intensive business services firms can act as sources, facilitators, and carriers of knowledge, and they can orchestrate further contributions of other external partners and firms.

The paper contributes to theory describing the roadmap and the role of external service providers in digital servitization journeys of smaller firms’, that are frequently excluded from mainstream research although being the backbone of European economies.

Digital servitization in minor manufacturing firms requires a long-term orientation and a multi-stage roadmap. Mixing standardized technology-based solutions and complementary professional services, knowledge-intensive business services firms can significantly contribute to lowering the journey’s uncertainties, operational complexity, and costs.

The paper sheds lights on how the collaboration between knowledge-intensive business services firms and small manufacturers generates novel knowledge and capabilities that contribute to takle the challenges of the different stages of the digital servitization roadmap.

New ways of working challenge workplace management: increasing mobility and diminishing organizational boundaries require re-evaluation of both workplace design and service delivery. However, structures and processes of workplace management are still traditional, and managers, together with outsourced facility service providers, often do not succeed at fulfilling the needs of mobile employees. The aforementioned changes stimulate discussions in many areas in both industry and academy. Nevertheless, workplace literature from business perspective seems to be scarce. In this paper, the focus is on workplace service offering for mobile knowledge workers. This paper aims to study the current state of workplace servitization. To answer this, the authors identify value offering elements that are used in office business market to deliver workplace as a service.

This study follows multiple case study methodology including five case studies. Primary data were collected through interviews with workplace service providers. Secondary data included observations and publicly available data. The authors took business model design approach to study selected business offerings.

The results indicate that workplace business models include elements of servitization on various levels. Physical space is no longer the central offering in the office business; instead, it acts as a component on which the service portfolio is built. The highest value from workplace comes from experience-related service offerings.

Academically, research contributes to the workplace management studies by providing servitization perspective to a topic previously approached with a more technical and psychological point of view. This study can also support service providers and customer organizations in their quest to make service provision more flexible and experience-oriented.

This article aims to investigate the nature and characteristics of business model elements required for successful service innovation. The authors examine which unique resources and capabilities product-centric firms should develop and deploy to pursue service innovation.

Data collected from several research projects support iterations across empirical data and theory, in an abductive process. Empirical data come from product-centric firms; interviews and focus groups were the main data collection methods.

Specific resources and capabilities are needed for the proposed business model elements, as defined by the overarching strategy and structure. Firms can approach the process of service innovation from different starting points and sequences, depending on the context.

Because it takes a synthesizing approach, this research lacks some detail. By taking a business model approach with a holistic perspective, it forgoes detailed descriptions to provide greater breadth.

Managers can use business models as tools to visualize changes, which should increase internal transparency, understanding, and awareness of service opportunities and necessary changes. Dependencies exist among elements; a change in one element likely affects the others. This study provides insights into which efforts are necessary and offers managers a guiding framework.

By providing a multidimensional perspective on service innovation, this study merges various previous research into a synthesized discussion. Combining a resources and capabilities perspective with a business model framework also leads to new insights regarding service innovation and associated activities.

The purpose of this paper is to explain why product-centric manufacturers utilize advanced services not as vehicles of transformation, but of reinforcement, to strengthen their established business model logic based on selling products and basic product-related services.

The empirical basis of this study relies on an in-depth case study of a globally operating manufacturer of industrial pumps and related services. The data includes 31 interviews conducted over several years of in-depth collaboration with the studied firm.

Product-centric manufacturers utilize advanced services as engagement platforms to facilitate the external and internal engagement of the actors and the resources controlled by them. Externally, advanced services facilitate access to customer decision makers and insights into their latent needs. Internally, advanced services help the manufacturer to more effectively leverage resources that reside within its different organizational units. Ultimately, in leveraging advanced services as engagement platforms, the manufacturer seeks to boost activities with the greatest immediate impact on its market performance: the sale of products and basic product-related services.

The study explains why managers should invest into development of advanced services even if such services contribute only marginally to the manufacturer’s direct revenues and profits.

This study contributes to development of an alternative explanation of servitization that departs from the current paradigmatic assumptions in the field.

This paper aims to present a framework that will help manufacturing firms to configure their internal production and support operations to enable effective and efficient delivery of products and their closely associated services.

First, the key definitions and literature sources directly associated with servitization of manufacturing are established. Then, a theoretical framework that categorises the key characteristics of a manufacturer's operations strategy is developed and this is populated using both evidence from the extant literature and empirical data.

The framework captures a set of operations principles, structures and processes that can guide a manufacturer in the delivery of product‐centric servitized offering. These are illustrated and contrasted against operations that deliver purely product (production operations) and those which deliver purely services (services operations).

The work is based on a review of the literature supported by data collected from an exploratory case study. Whilst it provides an essential platform, further research will be needed to validate the framework.

The principal contribution of this paper is a framework that captures the key characteristics of operations for product‐centric servitized manufacture.

The purpose of this paper is to explain the importance of the understanding of the halal business from an Islamic perspective. Business use of the Quranic and fiqhi word halal is now conspicuous because of the penetration of halal product ideas not only into the food products but also into the pharmaceutical, cosmetic, leisure and entertainment industries.

This paper evaluates the Islamic authenticity of the prevailing halal business initiatives. Toward this evaluation, explains the frame of reference and shows the Islamic ethical excellence of business enterprises. This framework is based on the Quranic injunctions and instructions regarding usury (riba), intoxicants (khamr), trade with mutual consent (taradim minkum) and trading during Friday prayer (Jumuah), which have direct or indirect implications for the management of business enterprises. Then, it describes and evaluates two cases, namely, halal chicken and Sharīʿah-compliant hotel. Materials for these cases are obtained through an internet blog and literature review.

The evaluation reveals that these halal business cases are overwhelmingly product-centric and they violate or neglect people’s rights. On the scale of ethics and social responsibility, while they largely maintain legal responsibility, moral and spiritual responsibilities hardly draw their attention. Hence, a need for a fundamental reorientation of halal business thought is suggested in the conclusion.

The findings may serve as a useful input for halal business owners in improving their practices to confirm with all moral and spiritual standards of Islamic business conduct, and not the only product. These standards have significant implications for equitable growth in a society and a blissful eternal life.

The topic of product-centric halal business has not been fully explored and understood by its stakeholders. This paper aims to give insights to an overwhelming trend toward equating halal products with the whole of the halal business.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of the servitization phenomenon of product-centric companies, by identifying the resources, capabilities and organizational aspects needed to successfully deploy a servitized business model (BM).

By adopting a literature-based approach, this paper develops a servitization maturity model (SeMM) aimed at assessing and positioning companies in the servitization journey. The paper also illustrates the model application to two small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), a machinery and a forklift truck company.

The SeMM identifies a set of 85 critical requirements that are used to evaluate the servitization level of product-centric companies, through a specific five-stage measurement scale. The requirements are categorized into: five maturity dimensions (organizational approach, process management, performance management, tools, capabilities) and nine BM Canvas components. The empirical application exemplifies how the SeMM can support managers in identifying and bridging the gaps in their servitization journey.

The SeMM adopts an original bi-dimensional approach and provides an operationalization of the servitization process through the identification of specific critical requirements framed on established BM and maturity dimensions taken from the literature. Moreover, the model responds to a call for research to develop practitioner-oriented tools and guidelines to support the servitization process, in particular for SMEs, and to the need to go beyond to measures of servitization based on indicators about number of services offered or their turnover.