Manufacturers forming successful complex business services: Designing an organization to fit the market

The purpose of this paper was to isolate and characterize organizational factors that enable the formation of high‐performing business services in product manufacturing firms.

This study employed a case research design. In total, 32 depth interviews were conducted with 11 different managers from a Global 100 information technology manufacturing firm. These managers were directly responsible for forming a highly successful business service. All interviews were tape‐recorded, transcribed, and the resulting 500 pages of interview data were open‐coded in QSR NUDIST. A case report was reviewed by study participants to enhance construct validity.

The general conclusion is that forming high‐performing business services in product manufacturing firms stems largely from managers' ability to create internal alignment among several organizational factors that collectively “fit” conditions in the market.

This study does not provide the statistical generalization to a larger population offered by a large‐sample study. In addition, all data were collected from individuals who were directly involved in the formation of the focal business service.

The insights from this study can help managers design within a product manufacturing firm an organization that supports the formation of complex business services.

While product manufacturers' expansion into services is very prevalent in practice, the development has received sparse academic research attention.