NEW SERVICE DEVELOPMENT: SUCCESS FACTORS FROM THE VIEWPOINT OF FLEET ASSET MANAGEMENT OF INDUSTRIAL SERVICE PROVIDERS

Numerous studies in the last two decades have revealed that many factors of success and failure in new service development (NSD) do not significantly differ from the influencing factors in new product development in the manufacturing environment. However, typical service characteristics, e.g. intangibility, heterogeneity, inseparability and perishability have a significant influence on the emphasis of the factors in NSD. Several authors have also recently stressed that the traditional boundaries between manufacturing firms and services are becoming obsolete. Many traditional manufacturing companies have increased their maintenance and other services for the whole lifecycles of their products, while service firms tend to compete with tangible products like “productized” software as well. The study focuses on the industrial environment of machinery suppliers who aim to increase the volume of the service business and its share from the total turnover. It is hypothesized that the management of fleet assets (for instance information and knowledge management related to a wide globally installed machinery base) is a key factor and precondition for successful development of the new service concept, which together with “generic” success factors lead to the better competitive advantage. The study is a part of a larger multi-disciplinary research project started in 2007. In this paper we bring forth a framework for successful NSD and transformation towards more service-oriented business in the networked environment, and we also study the influence and relations of success factors on effective asset management. In addition, we make a preliminary analysis between the success factors of NSD in the literature and the real challenges faced by the five interviewed Finnish manufacturing firms in the areas of fleet asset management and NSD. Since the value of service is co-created in interaction between the provider and the customer, interviews of selected client firms of machinery suppliers also bring essential information for complementing the picture. In the empirical research, the aim is not only to understand the value creation process but also to understand how to make the value of the service more apparent to customers.

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