This chapter summarizes the findings chapter. The findings are categorized un-der the main constructs and the subconstructs, i.e., themes. The following table (table 4) presents the different themes under each main construct. The order of the themes is descending, and the most significant themes according to the find-ings are on top. The most significant themes are bolded.
The most important themes of customer needs are increased needs and cus-tomer value. Increased needs consisted of practical needs that cuscus-tomers have, for example, need for better wellbeing or better indoor air. Customer value ex-presses how customers expect the service to produce value for their investment.
The customers needed enough value for their money, and most of the customers received enough value. Confidence for purchase is also an important theme as many customers experienced that their confidence was increased due to different matters, for example, sufficient information on the service and product, and reg-ular service fee that includes the whole service package instead of high invest-ments.
Service provider needs include one theme over the others as the delivery of customer needs and demands was the most significant theme in this category.
This theme describes how the service provider pursues to fulfill different cus-tomer needs and demands. Other themes are important as well, but these were discussed mostly by the service provider. Maintain in competition, growth, prof-itability, and competitive advantage are themes that deal with the objectives of the service provider as they turned out to be very keen to improve in every one of these.
TABLE 4 Constructs according to the findings
purchase Growth Change in
strategy and
In transition, the most significant themes are value in-use and service orientation.
Both of these themes are the core mindset of the transition in which a company decides to transition from a manufacturing company to a service company. Value in-use explains how value is produced through services, for example, mainte-nance service takes care of the product, and the product produces value for the customers when they are near it. Service orientation describes how well the ser-vice provider is orientated as a serser-vice company. The serser-vice provider considered themselves as a service orientated company as did many of the customers, but some of the customers thought that the service provider is a product company because the product is very prominent part of the offering. Other themes were discussed mainly by the service provider. These themes are important as well, but the significance of these themes is clearly lesser when compared to the most important themes. Change in strategy and business model theme describes how these have changed and why. The service provider discussed that their overall strategy have changed to more focused, and sales strategy have changed to more effective form. According to the service provider, the basic idea of the business model has been the same, but many details have changed along the way. The service provider also discussed what kind of capabilities, resources, and assets they have acquired to enable the transition. The most notable were people capa-bilities and resources for producing different services. Service co-production theme depicts how the service provider have utilized their customers in the ser-vice development. Customer collaboration has been more intensive when new solutions or services have been developed.
In Solutions, the most important themes are product-related and service-related solutions. The product-service-related solutions are solutions that the product can produce, for example, air purification and humidification, and comfortability.
The service-related solutions are different services provided to customers, for
example, maintenance service or interior design service. Other solutions are less significant, but these are still essential. Operability describes how much custom-ers are required to do self-service, and many customcustom-ers experienced that the amount of self-service was minimal. Product-service systems depict the union of the product and services as these were seen as inseparable. This union was de-scribed by stating that the product cannot operate without services. Customiza-tion and unique offerings illustrates how the service provider can offer different customization services or unique offerings. The products and services are cus-tomizable to some extent. The most common customizations related to the func-tionalities of the product and how service activities were performed. Unique of-ferings were rare because of the high price.
In benefits, the most important themes are increased value for customer and customer satisfaction. Increased value for customer theme consists different ful-filled customer needs, for example, better wellbeing. Customer satisfaction was expressed by many customers, and it was also important for the service provider.
Customer centricity and the delivery of customer needs had the biggest impact on customer satisfaction. Well-functioning relationships and increased value for the service provider themes are also quite important. The former theme is im-portant for both the customers and the service provider because well-functioning relationships are essential in service business, whereas the latter theme consisted of different matters that produce value for the service provider. Customer rela-tionships were described as close and well-functioning. These relarela-tionships were the most significant reason for gaining customer insights which were utilized in the development of the product and services. Competitive success was apparent in the old markets as the service provider had tremendous growth in there as well as they had managed to build well-known brand.
7 DISCUSSION
The objective of this study is to understand how the transition from products to cybernized services occurs and what essential factors relate to this transition. To better understand this phenomenon, the main research question is the following:
How can products be transitioned into cybernized services? In addition, it is important to understand what leads to the transition, what are the reasons for the transition, and what kind of outcomes are enabled or produced through the transition.
Therefore, the secondary research questions are the following: Why are products transitioned into cybernized services? What are the results and outcomes of the transition from products to cybernized services? The research questions are answered in the next chapter. The second and third sections discuss on the theoretical and practi-cal implications.