Datatization as the Next Frontier of Servitization – Understanding the Challenges for Transforming Organizations

Abstract

Today, servitization has reached its saturation point as enterprises in almost every business and continent pursued it as a differentiation strategy. Data analytics may offer the next frontier of innovation and hold the potential for enterprises to create value for their customers. Nevertheless, organizations face a series of barriers when utilizing the technologies. We apply a rigorous qualitative analysis process based on grounded theory and interview data of 15 business-to-business companies that already successfully utilize data analytics to create value for their customers. We analyzed our results in the lights of the barriers organization face in servitization and reveal that data analytics adds an additional layer of complexity. Our work contributes to the fundamental understanding of organizational transformation and should provide concrete guidance to business leaders on how to address transformation regarding the utilization of data and analytics