Exploring Capabilities for the Smart Service Transformation in Manufacturing: Insights from Theory and Practice

Digital Servitization is one of the significant trends affecting the manufacturing industry. Companies try to tackle challenges regarding their differentiation and profitability using digital services. One specific type of digital services are smart services, which are digital services built on data from smart products. Introducing these kinds of offerings into the portfolio of manufacturing companies is not trivial. Moreover, they require conscious action to align all relevant capabilities to realize the respective business goals. However, what capabilities are generally relevant for smart services remains opaque. We conducted a systematic literature review to identify them and extended the results through an interview study. Our analysis results in 78 capabilities clustered among 12 principles and six dimensions. These results provide significant support for the smart service transformation of manufacturing companies and for structuring the research field of smart services.