Servitization: revisiting the state-of-the-art and research priorities

Tim Baines (PhD) is a Professor of Operations Strategy and the Executive Director of the Advanced Services Group at the Aston Business School, Aston University. He is a leading international authority on servitization and spends much of his time working hands-on with both global and local manufacturing companies to understand servitization in practice and help to transform businesses. Tim leads a programme of internationally renowned research into servitization, and delivers executive development and custom programmes to global and local industry alike. His book Made to Serve: How Manufacturers can Compete Through Servitization and Product Service Systems, described as, “Essential reading for any companies or executives looking to explore this option for their business” provides a practical guide to servitization, based on in-depth research with leading corporations such as Xerox, Caterpillar, Alstom and MAN Truck & Bus UK.

Dr Ali Ziaee Bigdeli (PhD) is a Senior Research Fellow at the Advanced Services Group, the Centre of Excellence in Research and Practice on Servitization and Advanced Services within Aston Business School, Aston University. His interests lie in the organizational change and business model innovation brought about when organizations move towards providing capabilities rather than just selling products on a transactional basis. In the past two years, Dr Bigdeli has been extensively engaged with both multinational and small/medium sized manufacturing firms in order to understand servitization in practice, and help the acceleration of the adoption and implementation of advanced services. His research has been published in leading business and management journals, including International Journal of Operations & Production Management, R&D Management, Journal of Business Research, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Information and Management and many more.

Dr Oscar F. Bustinza (PhD, 2008) is a Reader in Strategy and Operations Management at the University of Granada, Spain. His work aims to analyse drivers of firm’s boundaries choice, demand chain management, and service innovation based upon data driven analysis. Dr Bustinza’s research has been published in the Journal of Supply Chain Management, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, International Journal of Production Economics, Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, and British Journal of Management among other outlets. Dr Bustinza is the Principal Investigator on Service Innovation in MAKERS, a H2020 project that supports an EU-wide network of researchers. This over €1 million project is funded by the European Commission and coordinated by the University of Birmingham. Dr Oscar Bustinza is also P.I. of a Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Spain) funded piece of research which examines the servitization of business.

Victor Guang Shi (PhD) is based in the AMRC with Boeing, University of Sheffield, He is a Lead Researcher on the Gamification for Servitization project. His research interests include: application of institutional theory, resource-based view, dynamic capabilities in the context of high value manufacturing R&D development, servitization, business model innovation, circular economy and organizational change studies.

James Baldwin (PhD) is a Senior Research Fellow at the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre with Boeing at The University of Sheffield, UK. Research interests include the development and application of evolutionary theory and classification science in the context of engineering management, operations, production and supply chain management, strategic management and organizational behaviour.

Keith Ridgway (CBE, Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering) is the Executive Dean of the University of Sheffield AMRC, and Research Director and Co-founder of the AMRC with Boeing. He also takes additional role as the Executive Chair of the Advanced Forming Research Centre (AFRC) at the University of Strathclyde. Keith Ridgway’s research focusses on strategy development of three major manufacturing research centres in complementary areas to guide future manufacturing policies in the UK and support collaborating companies to gain access to the facilities and expertise in high value manufacturing.