Forming Successful Business-to-Business Services in Goods-Dominant Firms

Abstract

Extant literature is almost unanimous in suggesting that managers in goods-dominant firms should integrate services into their core market offers. Furthermore, in actual practice, numerous firms are striving with mixed results to become “solutions providers” by adding services to their portfolio of tangible goods. The literature does not, however, describe what factors to consider when adding services and how the factors should be designed to enhance organizational performance. The purpose of this study was to isolate and characterize factors that enable the formation of successful business-to-business (B2B) services in goods-dominant firms. Using a multicase research design, this study highlights four substantive cases of Fortune 500 firms in which B2B service development was a process of aligning strategy with a highly complex market. The study then illustrates how firms that demonstrate a record of successful B2B service development adapt several factors of organization to align with the newly formed strategy.