عوامل موثر بر انتخاب مدل های کسب و کار با راه حل خاص

Services are receiving an increasing amount of attention in project-based firms. This has led project suppliers to employ new business models; the project supplier can offer services as an additional component of the project or take full responsibility for the operation and maintenance of the facility throughout its life-cycle. In this paper, we build on the idea that within the context of project-based firms, assessing business models requires a solution level of analysis which implies services as integral parts of project offering. We analyze business models in five solutions that were delivered by a power plant supplier firm. The evidence clearly demonstrates that there are variations in business models at the solution level. The paper further contributes to existing research by empirically identifying factors that influence the choice of business model for a particular solution. Finally, we formulate propositions on how these identified factors influence the choice of a business model for an individual solution.

As in the traditional manufacturing business (Baines et al., 2009, Wise and Baumgartner, 1999 and Vandermewe and Rada, 1988), also project-based firms, which focus a specific part of their activities in projects (Artto and Kujala, 2008), are placing more and more emphasis on services in their offerings (Artto et al., 2008). The term “servitization” is used to describe this trend from a pure project or product deliveries towards integrated solutions in which services have a leading role (Rothenberg, 2007, Vandermewe and Rada, 1988 and White et al., 1999). These integrated solutions are bundled offerings of goods, services, knowledge, support, and self-service (Davies, 2004 and Vandermewe and Rada, 1988). In addition, customers of capital-intensive systems are increasingly interested in the life-cycle costs of their investments (Stremersch et al., 2001). This has led project supplier firms to develop not only additional service components for their project deliveries but also solutions that seek to optimize the systems' total operation and maintenance (O&M) costs during their life-cycle (Ivory et al., 2003 and Wise and Baumgartner, 1999). These life-cycle solutions provide potential benefits because they maintain a larger share in the customers' businesses, suppliers have more responsibility for long-term successes, project suppliers have more opportunities to maximize profit and can capture a larger portion of the overall value stream (Davies, 2004). Furthermore, it has been suggested that firms that have O&M involvement in the solutions' use-phase should formulate business models that support life-cycle solution deliveries; both the project supplier firm and its customers can reap benefits with the design of integrated packages for optimal life-cycle performance (Ivory et al., 2003 and Markeset and Kumar, 2004). Despite the potential benefits of servitization, prior research suggests that there are a number of factors that may discourage firms from providing integrated packages with more services (Cohen et al., 2006, Mathieu, 2001b, Rothenberg, 2007, Vandermewe and Rada, 1988 and Wikström et al., 2009). General literature on business strategy and business models suggest that the firm's products and services, markets and customers, technology, capabilities, value proposition and revenue creation logic, or past performance and industry characteristics are factors to be considered in the choice of a business model (Chesbrough and Rosenbloom, 2002, Morris et al., 2005, Siggelkow, 2001, Slywotsky et al., 1998 and Tikkanen et al., 2005). It has also been suggested that there are several contextual factors that affect the choice of business model for a project-based firm such as industry logic, the relative size and frequency of project deliveries and project novelty (Kujala et al., 2008). Prior research has focused on business models and their applicability at the firm level (Siggelkow, 2001, Tikkanen et al., 2005 and Hedman and Kalling, 2003). However, it has been suggested that in the context of project-based firms business models should be studied based on individual solutions delivered to customers (Kujala et al., 2010). Even though Kujala et al. (2010) focused on the conceptualization of a business model at the solution level, empirical evidence concerning the factors that influence the choice of business model at solution level is scarce. Furthermore, despite the potential advantages and benefits of life-cycle solutions (Ivory et al., 2003 and Windahl et al., 2004), the choice of business model for individual solutions is not straightforward; services impact project-based firms' business in various ways (Artto et al., 2008). For example, in some firms operational services may even cannibalize a more profitable transactional maintenance business (Artto et al., 2008). Similarly, even though life-cycle solutions are sometimes considered the only way to provide full customer satisfaction (Stremersch et al., 2001), they can also pose significant business risks for the client since operational service contracts are complex (Stremersch et al., 2001) and the customer has to rely on the supplier's expertise in managing and operating the solution (Helander and Möller, 2007). Some customers prefer to remain independent of their suppliers (Helander and Möller, 2007) making life-cycle solutions less attractive. In order to increase the understanding of why project-based firms implement different business models at the solution level, we address the following research question: What factors influence the choice of the business model for a solution delivery in a project-based firm? Building on prior research on business models at the firm level, the aim of this paper is to engage in an empirical analysis to identify the factors that influence the choice of the business model at the solution level. We have studied five individual solution deliveries at a power plant supplier company. In this paper we make a distinction between three different types of solutions: (1) transactional project deliveries, (2) project led solutions, and (3) life-cycle solutions. Transactional project deliveries are simple system deliveries to a customer with little or no additional service components. A project led solution, includes a traditional project delivery as well as a long-term O&M service component, which are offered and sold to the customer as distinct components. In project led solutions, operational services are an important part of the offering, but the core delivery project is the main focus. Operational services that are offered by these firms are standardized and are provided to customers that are eager to outsource for flexibility reasons (Gebauer, 2008). Finally, in a life-cycle solution the project and service components are offered as a single integrated solution, emphasizing the life-cycle performance of the offering. In the case of integrated solutions, the provider must identify and solve each of the customer's business problems by providing services to design, integrate, operate and finance a system during its life-cycle (Davies et al., 2006). Stremersch et al. (2001) approach solutions using a definition of “full service” that extends the traditional product offering so that it covers customer needs that arise after the delivery of a system. They state that a full service strategy dominates the provisions of goods and bundled or unbundled services. Furthermore, they see an offering as a solution that is viewed as a service activity and suggest that this is the only way to fully satisfy customer needs (Stremersch et al., 2001). Life-cycle solutions transform a project supplier's business model from a project delivery focus in to a project product's use-phase with a focus on the total life-cycle of the system. There is often a gap between what the supplier considers to be a solution and what is actually a solution for the customer (Tuli et al., 2007). From the supplier's perspective, solutions are often viewed as bundles of products, software, and services that create more value for customers (e.g., Galbraith, 2002). However, this view does not often capture the customer's perspective of a solution (Tuli et al., 2007). Instead, solutions should be viewed as a set of customer–supplier relational processes (Normann, 2001 and Tuli et al., 2007) and a supplier should adopt a service-dominant logic (Lusch and Vargo, 2006 and Vargo and Lusch, 2004) in its solution business. Life-cycle models emphasize the use-phase performance of a solution, which also illustrates how servitization blurs the distinction between manufacturing and service activities (White et al., 1999).

In this paper we have explored the factors that influence a project supplier firm's choice of business model for its various solution deliveries. We have focused on servitized business models. It has been suggested that such business models are very important for firms in today's business environment (Vandermewe and Rada, 1988 and Rothenberg, 2007). In the context of a project-based firm, we made a distinction between the three different deliveries depending on the role that services play; transactional project deliveries, project led solutions, and life-cycle solutions. Our aim was to identify the factors that influence the choice between the business models for these solutions. We built on the assumption that in the context of project-based firm, the assessment of business models needs to be done at the solution level (Kujala et al., 2010). This is supported by our empirical findings; the focal firm indeed had different business models for different solution deliveries. We further analyzed why a certain business model was implemented in each solution and identified the factors affecting the choice. Based on our findings, we formulated propositions addressing how those identified factors influence the choice of business model for solution deliveries in project-based firms. Our analysis also points out an important finding; most of the influencing factors are fully or partly related to the customer and, therefore somewhat beyond the managerial decision making capabilities of the project supplier firm. This finding supports the notion that customer-orientation is indeed the key feature in servitized business in general (Vandermewe and Rada, 1988). Our results also challenge the traditional definition of what a project is by a clear differentiation between operation and maintenance related to the solution. This research has been one of the first empirical attempts to assess business models of project-based firms at the solution level. Despite the clear contribution to the understanding of why firms implement different business models at the solution level, the findings are still preliminary in nature. The research is not without limitations but it does provide interesting avenues for further research. First, we have taken a supplier perspective in the assessment of factors that affect the choice of business model. The dyadic level of analysis with both supplier and customer perspectives taken into account could be beneficial and provide interesting results, especially observations at the solution level. More empirical data is needed to assess the findings and to find other potential factors affecting the choice of the business model. Further research could also assess the identified factors and their relevance and importance in other empirical contexts (firms and industries). The relative importance of the factors and their interplay in different business situations provides an additional interesting avenue for further research. Furthermore, although ideal case life-cycle solutions and life-cycle business models optimize life-cycle performance and minimize the total cost of delivery and maintenance for both the project supplier and the customer, many firms still face barriers in implementing life-cycle solution business models. Our analysis points out the institutionalization of other business practices and the product-oriented organizational structure of the project supplier as one of the factors promoting the implementation of transactional project deliveries or project-led solutions. These findings should be subject to more research, because these factors could be a characteristic of the focal firm or of the industry. The underlying idea of the life-cycle model is that it provides long term benefits for both the customer and the supplier but more research is needed in this area. Questions such as; what factors affect the use-phase performance of life-cycle solutions? Are life-cycle solutions truly able to optimize the use-phase performance for both the customers and the suppliers and create win-win situations? And finally, in what ways does implementing a servitized business model impact a project supplier's business? More research is needed on the relationship between the impact that services have on businesses and on the identified factors.