Enhancing Product Portfolios: Strategic Selection and Evaluation of Smart Services for Manufacturing Companies

Providing smart services enables organisations to enhance their competitive advantage by expanding their product portfolio and generating additional revenue streams. Nevertheless, companies still encounter many challenges when selecting and developing smart services. Consequently, the innovation process within companies frequently lacks systematic and structured procedures. This paper presents a methodology designed to support manufacturing companies in selecting and evaluating smart services. Based on a systematic literature review and expert interviews, existing approaches were identified and evaluated, general and context-specific requirements were derived, and the high-level concept of the methodology was developed. The methodology begins with a detailed selection phase, where customer value propositions are identified, and suitable smart services are chosen using a newly developed smart service matrix. Following this, the evaluation phase introduces eight criteria to qualitatively assess smart services. These criteria include technical effort, personnel involvement, time requirements, economic benefits, customer retention, scalability, customer requirements, and alignment with company strategy. The evaluation results allow for a comparison and prioritization of smart services. In the final step, the prioritized smart services undergo a quantitative effort/benefit assessment to ensure informed decision-making regarding their implementation. The methodology was validated through five expert interviews from both industry and research within the research project “Easy2IoT”, demonstrating its applicability and relevance for manufacturing companies. This structured approach is suitable for companies with no prior experience in smart services as well as those looking to expand their existing product portfolio.