Service modularization: Decomposing and standardizing an existing service offering to enable further service development

Abstract

Servitization is a concept which has grown in popularity among organizations which seek to expand their value offering to customers and gain an edge over competitors through differentiation. Increase in servitization also leads to increased need to organize the service offering of an organization and in doing so increase the efficiency in the service offerings. A balance between customization and standardization in a service offering is required to ensure the customer receives a service which fits their needs. At the same time, the while the supplying organization needs to make the service as effective and resource efficient as possible as to be able to earn the maximum return on their efforts. This in turn has led to organizations and researchers beginning to research the subject of service modularity, as a way to achieve a balance between these two attributes. The thesis looks into how an organization can effectively modularize an already existing service offering, by utilizing service decomposition and breaking down the service to later modularize it. The thesis was performed at a case company which needed assistance with their service offering in relation to coaching dealerships, which was not properly mapped and had issues with their organization of services. The service offering was decomposed, modularized, and considerations for when re-integrating the modularized services into the organization was produced. The research identified five different coaching modules for the case company, which are then used to organize the service offering of the organization. The thesis produced a framework which is intended to be followed when decomposing and modularizing a service offering, a framework which was followed for the case study. Learnings from this framework is further presented in the thesis, and takeaways for implementation of this framework is given. The potential benefits of a modular service offering are presented, the challenges which exist when utilizing the framework is discussed, and future research recommendations is provided.