The effects of software and service orientations on sales productivity in Canadian software companies from 1993 to 2011

Abstract

Software development can be viewed as manufacturing a knowledge-intensive tool. Managers of software companies can either specialize in developing underlying software technologies or specialize in developing services that support software technologies. We explore the revenue generated by product and service orientations in public and private Canadian software firms from 1993-2011. Our analysis finds that service orientation contributes significantly more to service sales productivity than product orientation contributes to software sales productivity. The analysis implies that software firms should strengthen service-oriented capabilities, however we discuss that managers may find specialization in services difficult to do. © 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.