Product + Service + Data Integration project

2019 - 2022 at Copenhagen Business School

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THE CHALLENGE

Over the past five years, significant managerial attention and effort have been devoted to two important transformations of Danish businesses: servitization (adding services to manufactured goods) and digitalization (exploiting data for increasing competitiveness).

While servitization and digital transformations are still ongoing for many firms and thus warrant additional transformation support, a new reality is evolving after the two, often separate, transformations: managing the integration of products, services, and data simultaneously on a continuous basis to further develop the competitiveness of firms.

We call it “The Product + Service Data (P+S+D) Integration Challenge”.

BARRIERS FOR SUCCESSFUL P+S+D INTEGRATION

Our ongoing work with Danish firms has revealed four barriers for successful P+S+D integration:

Barrier 1: Lack of strategy and no direction – Firms have a limited un- derstanding of the competitive landscape after their transformation. While many, if not all, firms regard digital and service transformations as important for future competitiveness, managers have limited insights into the key success factors in P+S+D integrated markets and market positions.

Barrier 2: Lack of inspiration and no ideas – Many successful P+S+D offerings are the result of autonomous employee initiatives that operate under the radar on a trial-and-error-and-revise modus. Firms are struggling to find the right balance between autonomy and alignment for inventing their P+S+D integration.

Barrier 3: Lack of business model and no operations – Based on development of innovative solutions and strategy, firms need to configure (and to reconfigure) their business models to enable competitive operational excellence in delivering P+S+D solutions.

Barrier 4: Lack of pricing and no payments – The deliverable solution needs to be priced and sold towards customers sucessfully in markets that are under constant development.

ADDRESSING THE NEW P+S+D CHALLENGES

In order to address the new P+S+D integration challenge, Danish firms need to understand and undertake two key processes that together build the journey from separate transformations to full integration:

1) Innovate and define your P+S+D integration strategy

2) Optimize your P+S+D business model and pricing

CONCURRENT KNOWLEDGE CREATION WITH AN INDUSTRY CORE GROUP

A central foundation for our research activities is the industry core group to enhance and collaborate on knowledge co-creation. Based on close knowledge sharing and understanding between researchers and executives as well as between executives from different companies and industries (through joint workshops and seminars), the industry core group will be an intensive learning environment with discovery processes, case studies, mapping and rating exercises as well as supervised trials of new research- based frameworks and tools. The immediate outputs for the core industry group members are clearer strategic visions, better understanding of own practices, comparison of own practices to best practices – resulting in improved P+S+D practices in participating firms. This state-of-the-art knowledge leads to higher competitiveness of participating firms and competitive advantages in an integrated P+S+D reality.

PRACTITIONER GUIDES FOR EXECUTIVES

The project develops booklets for practitioners that aim to inspire Danish firms and help them in their P+S+D Integration journeys. The booklets can be downloaded free of charge:

THEMES OF DEEP DIVES

Deep dive 1: This deep dive aims to unlock the inspiring innovation potential that rests in employees while at the same time allowing for focused efforts and direction
Deep dive 2: This deep dive focuses on understanding different P+S+D strategies, understanding their
Deep dive 3: This deep dive focuses on understanding the P+S+D operating business models and resource composition
Deep dive 4: This deep dive explores value-based pricing for P+S+D solutions.

THE CBS RESEARCH TEAM OF THE SERVITIZE.DK PROGRAM

As part of the Servitize.dk program, this CBS research investigates how the integration of the three elements, product, service and data is best utilized by companies for corporate success. We call it “The P+S+D Integration Challenge”. The Servitize.dk program aims to further strengthen the competitiveness of Danish organizations within the area of servitization.

The Servitize.dk program is a national effort, funded by the Danish Industry Foundation, in which CBS collaborates with FORCE Technology, Aarhus University BTECH, the Danish Technological Institute, and Alexandra Institute.

The CBS research in the Servitize.dk program builds upon the two earlier research projects at CBS: “Driving Competitiveness through Servitization” and “From Big Data to Big Business (BDBB): Understanding datadriven business development”