Autor: Ralf Reichwald

Integrating products and services to customized hybrid products can help firms to differentiate from their competitors. The essential value proposition of such bundled offerings can comprise usage-based selling (e.g. of machines) combined with guaranteed availability or the operation of customers’ complex production factors such as a complete assembly line. Operational efficiency is no longer sufficient for achieving long term success with hybrid products. Rather it is the way of interaction with customers which provides new opportunities for value creation. In the context of hybrid products the way of creating value for customers changes from a purely transactional view to a relational process. Accordingly, this paper addresses this change from a process-oriented perspective.

Due to accelerating innovation processes, shorter product life cycles, and a broader range of products the ramp-up management in the automotive industry has become more and more important over the last years. Within this process the launch support process has to ensure the meeting of the quality expectations of the costumers right from the start. The article discusses the requirements of an efficient product launch process, stressing the importance of fast and sustainable knowledge management.

Innovations are significant corporate challenges - and this is particularly the case with companies offering services. This article offers up to date results of an ongoing research project. It describes in detail a case of the way of a medium-sized company from a producer to service leadership, from the ini-tial situation via central challenges up to the current approach of a corporate university as engine and enabling context for permanent innovating of services.