Capabilities supporting digital servitization: A multi-actor perspective

Digital transformation in business solutions is offering opportunities for servitization to become more digitalized. In this context, digital servitization requires the actors involved to perform new roles and develop new capabilities. Although servitization actor capabilities in the digital transformation context have been addressed in prior studies, the literature lacks a detailed understanding of how they operate according to different service types and different actor roles. Through a systematic literature review, our study aims to expound the capabilities required for digital servitization, for Base, Intermediate, and Advanced services, and analyze who of the main actors of the service triad (manufacturer, intermediaries, and customer) should own such capabilities. This analysis resulted in a final sample of 47 main articles addressing capabilities. We show how the structure of the service triad shifts the digital service provision based on the capabilities required by each actor. For instance, Base Services demand less capabilities, thus, intermediary actors play a less important role since they just execute services usually on behalf of a manufacturer in a more discrete capacity. For Intermediate Services, the intermediary actor becomes more important, with capabilities needed to deliver the digital solution. In Advanced Services, customers' relationships with manufacturers become stronger, as this actor reassumes a central role in the solution offer, and intermediaries move to a supporting role again. Our analysis offers propositions for future research on digital servitization and practical implications on the capabilities required.