A New Perspective on Leadership for Achieving Servitization of Business

Abstract

Servitization is a competitive strategy for product companies to create differentiation advantage by adding services to products. One of the major challenges on implementing the strategy is that the leadership that used to develop a successful product-oriented business now turns into an obstacle in the process of servitization. Leadership is closely related to business field. In the paper, the essence of servitization is interpreted from three levels: service as an intangible product, service as a contextual experience and service as a value co-creating process. Based on an in-depth case study, the research introduces the new concept on leading the transformation towards servitization: vision co-creation with employees. The paper also provides practical implications on conducting various steps of vision co-creation.