Organization of Sales for Smart Product Service Systems

Abstract

Many industrial companies face their digital transformation. In addition to an existing portfolio of products and services, new digital services are being developed to offer a portfolio of smart product service systems (Smart PSS). While the development of new digital services is rarely a problem for the companies, the organization of sales and distribution of Smart PSS in particular is a key issue. The sales of Smart PSS differs considerably from the sales of only products or services and must therefore be designed differently in order to meet customer requirements and successfully commercialize the developed Smart PSS. This paper therefore describes how the sales organization of Smart PSS should be designed successfully in various forms. The network thinking methodology is used in combination with a case study research approach to describe the connection between the offered portfolio, the customer requirements and the different elements of a sales organization. Furthermore, four different types of a sales organization for Smart PSS are described. This paper gives a recommendation for companies on a design of their sales organizations on which practical implications may be developed.

Advances in Production Management Systems: Issues, Trends, and Vision Towards 2030

“…Recent research has underlined that the dynamics behind such a journey cannot be understood without considering the role of technological innovation in product, process, and service entities [90,91]. The reasons behind this are a growing interest in the development of what is being referred to as "digital servitization" [88,90,92], which concerns with the numerous operational, marketing, and business benefits that can be obtained through the integration of technology into PSSs [40,[92][93][94].…”