VAMOS: Value assessment method for smart services

Despite the economic potential of digital servitization, especially product-oriented industrial companies struggle to identify beneficial smart services and realize predicted revenues. This results from the complexity of smart services, which disrupt traditional business logics and require orientation toward value-in-use. Value-in-use is the benefit that materializes when actors use an offering. Examination of the anticipated value-in-use of smart services in the early stages of innovation is challenging but essential for design and investment decisions as well as convincing actors to participate in value co-creation. To provide systematic guidance, we introduce the value-in-use assessment method for smart services (VAMOS) drawing from design science research and situational method engineering. The method includes three activities to support practitioners in assessing smart service value-in-use and was validated through a thorough evaluation process with four industrial companies. VAMOS extends research on digital innovation, service-dominant logic, and digital servitization by contributing methodological knowledge.