Moving from servitization to digital servitization: Identifying the required dynamic capabilities and related microfoundations to facilitate the transition

Abstract

Many manufacturing companies are adopting servitization as a competitive business strategy to offer product-service combinations. The ongoing shift to digitalization and Industry 4.0 provides novel opportunities and benefits to industrial firms in this regard, and researchers termed the adoption of digital technologies to servitization as “digital servitization”. In order to successfully transition towards digital servitization, fundamental reconfiguration of resources, organizational structures, work practices, infrastructure, culture, etc. are required. Hence, this paper performs a systematic literature review on prior studies covering dynamic capabilities for servitization and digital servitization. The purpose is to identify and compare the dynamic capabilities needed to facilitate a transition from “traditional” servitization to digital servitization. In doing so, this paper presents an integrated framework of dynamic capabilities to enable digital servitization, providing 22 micro-foundations for servitization and digital servitization, as well as the key challenges and enablers related to the transition from one to the other.