Using Platforms to Pursue Strategic Opportunities in Service-Driven Manufacturing

Strategy research posits that in dynamic environments, firms must base their strategies not on leveraging the past, but on fostering constant change. This research explores how platforms can be used as semistructures to pursue strategic opportunities in manufacturers’ service networks. A platform strategy combining product and organization approaches is identified at the interfirm level. The results show that platforms are perceived to extend the physical product’s capacity to produce new usage scenarios, facilitate interfirm information flows and enable collective benefits, and create awareness of new value potentials. The study calls for more research regarding a systemic approach to solution business.