Servitisation and Japanese Firms : Current drivers and new challenge for manufacturing industry

What is meant by servitisation in the manufacturing industry and why is it becoming highly competitive and spreading fast as a key concept for manufacturers around the world? This model is not just selling products but looking at new ways of selling them together with advanced services, and is a new driver for manufacturing organisations. The idea of servitisation challenges commoditisation of existing products. Manufacturers are facing the challenge of findings ways to take an advantage of such new strategies to attract customers. Even those who make strongly competitive products could face new difficulties once they choose to participate in servitisation, since it takes into account not only their product quality but additional services that they need to invent and offer. While this servitisation is a fast-moving concept for the manufacturing industry worldwide, Japanese manufacturers need to find a way to handle it in order to break their ceiling and enrich the domestic market. One aspect of Japanese manufacturing is the keiretsu business network system, which includes supply chain collaboration. This article is a pilot discussion to investigate the current and future capabilities of the keiretsu firms in taking forward the idea of servitisation.