How does the implementation of complementary services to the initial product impact the firms internally, internationally and across sectors?

In the previous economy, there was a strict differentiation between manufacturing firms and firms providing services. Services firms were characterised by intangibility, inseparability, heterogeneity, and perishability while manufacturing firms were associated with the selling of material artefacts. In our actual economy, with the increase in technologies and with the globalisation, firms need to innovate and to differentiate in what they offer to be able to survive. A way for them to distinguish themselves became to create a bundle between products and services called the servitization. The concept of servitization will be to offer a product with a range of services around it to make this initial product more valuable. This master thesis has been divided into two parts, a theoretical one and a practical one, both having different methodologies. The theoretical one was related to various articles in the literature, while the practical one was built on interviews made in different firms; Hilti, Fokker, Econocom, HPE and SKF. Both those parts explained that the various reasons for this servitization were internal and external to the firms. The external part was based on the increase of technologies, the demand of the users and the environment, while the internal ones were based on marketing, strategical and financial reasons but also on the knowledge of the consumers, and a growth opportunity. The findings of this master thesis were that servitization is growing in different companies, even without them noticing it and that even though it might sometimes be difficult for some companies to implement servitization, this concept will grow inside the companies, across the different sectors of our economy and also at an international level.