SERVICE DEVELOPMENT IN A LARGE MANUFACTURING FIRM; A qualitative study of how the NBCS team at Volvo Cars can work with service development from a perspective of user-oriented approaches

Abstract

The environment for manufacturing firms is changing due to numerous factors, and the firms can no longer compete by solely offering physical products. Servitization is the process where manufacturing firms transform to compete through both physical products and services. Therefore, it is essential to have a process for developing services in place. This qualitative case study aims to identify an appropriate way for the NBCS team at Volvo Cars to work with service development from the perspective of user-oriented approaches, while considering the trend of servitization. The result has identified certain characteristics of user-oriented approaches suitable to include in typical stages, as well as throughout the whole service development process. The certain characteristics are based on theory and are further extended based on empirical findings. Findings for example show that the process as such should be of iterative design, have a high customer involvement, and include extensive experimentations. To be able to work as fast, flexible, and iterative as needed when developing services, top management support is essential, and a culture of risk and failure acceptance is considered favorable. The findings in the study have together been summarized in a model for service development, which outline an appropriate way for the team to adopt.