A new business concept that offers products and services in a different way of traditional product-sales businesses is getting more attention especially in manufacturing industries. This paper investigates how this ne...A new business concept that offers products and services in a different way of traditional product-sales businesses is getting more attention especially in manufacturing industries. This paper investigates how this new business by means of integration of products and services is achieved in Germany and Italy. In addition, it analyzes the differences according to the company sizes. The results include that this type of business is in many cases motivated by their focus on customers and often consists of physical products and their maintenance. The Italian companies, as opposed to the German ones, often design their physical products specifically for this type of offers. From the analysis based on the size difference, small companies are found to achieve specific design for this type of offers while owning physical products. There do not seem to be any established methods or tools developed to support the development of such offers and within such methods/tools there would be room for more adaptation in form of physical product design.展开更多
基金supported by a Research Fellowship Program by Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Germany,by VINNOVAthe Swedish Agency for Innovation Systemsthe Swedish Association of Graduate Engineers(Sveriges Ingenjrer),The original version was presented on ICSSSM'06.
文摘A new business concept that offers products and services in a different way of traditional product-sales businesses is getting more attention especially in manufacturing industries. This paper investigates how this new business by means of integration of products and services is achieved in Germany and Italy. In addition, it analyzes the differences according to the company sizes. The results include that this type of business is in many cases motivated by their focus on customers and often consists of physical products and their maintenance. The Italian companies, as opposed to the German ones, often design their physical products specifically for this type of offers. From the analysis based on the size difference, small companies are found to achieve specific design for this type of offers while owning physical products. There do not seem to be any established methods or tools developed to support the development of such offers and within such methods/tools there would be room for more adaptation in form of physical product design.