Product — Service transition: Research questions

This speculative paper presents research questions concerned with the transition from manufacturing to service in firms and the role of design in firms making it. The transition is recognised in the marketing and operations-management literatures but the business implications are not fully understood, leaving scope for empirical research to fill the gap in knowledge. It is recognised that products and services are combined in bundles which create value, understood differently by different customers. This paper suggests that creating value means products must be redesigned rather than just packaged with different services. The Organisation, or network of firms, which develops and delivers value must also be designed, but there is a lack of practical guidance in the literature. The paper provides a research agenda for investigating the implications of a product-service transition and suggests questions which research should answer to better understand how products, service and organisation can be designed.