Towards service business in Finnish industrial companies

The business environment is much more complex today than ever before. The changing business environment and more demanding customer needs are forcing companies to develop new solutions to serve their customers and fulfil their needs. Many companies are, therefore, 'upgrading' their products by integrating services into their core product offering [e.g., sources 1-2]. This phenomenon is called servitisation [3, 4, etc.] or PSS - product-service systems [5]. No matter how clear the service business drivers are, the transition from product manufacturer to service provider is not an easy, fast, and linear process. The objective of our study is to investigate the main services Finland's large and globally functioning industrial companies offer their customers. Besides listing the services, we look at how companies sell or offer these services to customers - i.e., what types of contracts they have with the customers. Most previous servitisation studies have focused on the drivers of the move toward service business or challenges in adoption of servitisation, while enhancers in that adoption process have received no attention. It is this gap we attempt to address by investigating how the transition toward service business has gone, through exploration of both challenges and enhancers. The study is based on four cases, with data collected in special interest group meetings (SIGs). Another contribution is description of this new development and research method.