Information - The hidden value of servitization

Abstract

Today, in a product-service offering, the product and its related services can represent two main sources of revenue streams for the manufacturer. Tomorrow, information deriving from servitization and exploited on an ecosystem level, could represent the third one, whereas due to their ample potential in sharp market value increase, they could even become the manufacturer’s main revenue stream. This article of explorative nature questions the possibility to introduce such disruptive approach. In order to do so, servitization is evinced through a new perspective, through information. In order to exploit this new potential, the concept of an information ecosystem is introduced. Secondly, a new role is proposed, helping manufacturers to span the boundary between product and service. To depict the impact of the introduced concepts while positioning it in relevant literature, a third layer of added value was added to Thoben’s representation of servitization levels [1], the information layer.