Katharina RaabeVertrieb komplexer digitaler Produkt-Service-Systeme im Zeitalter der digitalen Servitization in produzierenden Industrieunternehmen

About this book deutschenglish

Digital servitization makes it indispensable for industrial manufacturing companies to increasingly offer hybrid service bundles in the form of digital product-service systems in order to remain competitive. The physical core product is offered together with an integrated digital service.

These products are usually more complex and therefore require a greater amount of explanation. As a result, it exceeds the cognitive ability of a single salesperson to sell such products. At the same time, the risk perception and uncertainty associated with the purchase of the product increases on the customer side.

The author therefore analyses the influence of the degree of complexity of the product on sales performance. She differentiates between core product complexity, digital complexity and the overall complexity of the digital product-service system. She analyzes the sales functions as well as generalized and specialized sales competences required to successfully sell digital product-service systems. Moreover, she considers the design of the customer-supplier relationship for B2B business relationships with regard to relationship quality in connection with the reputation of the offering company.