Service Business Models in the Machine Tool Industry

Industrial services are becoming a fundamental competitive pillar for technology providers. They enable differentiation strategies that are the source of sustainable advantage for suppliers. On the other side, they are the key to deliver superior value to manufacturers that -through services- can adopt latest technologies and extract the maximum potential out of them. However, business model innovation that is required to offer and manage industrial services is a complex process that companies often fail to implement. By taking a multi-disciplinary view and a business to business marketing approach, this book investigates the diffusion of service business models in the machine tool industry, analysing challenges and barriers from a customer-supplier perspective. Multiple sources and research methodologies are combined to study business model innovation mechanisms and relevant variables, leading to a comprehensive framework which contributes to the research progress in this field.

Head of Manufacturing Business Models Department of the Institute of Industrial Technologies and Automation of the Italian National Research Council (ITIA-CNR). Assistant Researcher at the School of Management of Politecnico di Milano. His research deals with industrial services, manufacturing business models, technology foresight and roadmapping.