Servitising manufacturers: the impact of service complexity and contractual and relational capabilities

Abstract

Processes of servitisation will lead providers to change their service delivery structures, but they also need to transform broader organisational attributes including contractual and relational capabilities. Based on case studies in the European healthcare sector, we investigate the influence of increasing levels of service complexity on this transformation. Our findings are potentially counter-intuitive, suggesting that contractual capabilities do not increase with service complexity. Instead, we observed increased levels of relational capabilities, manifest in the visibility of the provider on the customer site, the number of ‘non-requested’ site visits and increasingly informal information exchange.