Towards Service 4.0: a new framework and research priorities

The merging of services and digital technologies generates remarkable opportunities in manufacturing, by allowing more efficient processes, adding value to products, and supporting improved managerial decisions with richer, faster and sounder information. Although the importance of this phenomenon, the scientific knowledge is not sufficient. By analyzing the emerging trends of digitization and servitization in manufacturing we tried firstly to identify the key digital technologies to the servitization by studying different frameworks and the national industry 4.0 policy initiatives in Europe. Secondly to describe and explain if and how they enable this transformation. This paper aims specifically to provide a framework which is able to rationalize and systemize the existing knowledge on the topic by conducting a literature review. This study is considered as the first step of a research program on how these two megatrends are jointly disrupting resources, competences, skills and consequently business models. We show that the knowledge about how digital technologies support servitization in manufacturing is still at an early stage and rather limited so future research should aim at better understanding the links between digital and service transformation. Greater knowledge of the impacts of digital technologies on the servitization process will pave the way for the development of contingency models that can support and guide academics and practitioners alike.