A conceptual framework for a new service model: digital servitization with an Industrial 4.0 perspective

Abstract

Purpose: Recently increasing costs and competitive pressure have accelerated the search for different business models in both the production and service sectors. The rapid development of technology has increased the importance of digitalization especially in developing new and different strategies. The digital service business model has also become a new business model that companies have recently preferred. In addition to its many advantages it is a business model in which different barriers arise in practice. When we look at the literature there are very few studies especially on digital servitization. The purpose of this study is to integrate the concept of digital servitization with the Industry 4.0 perspective. Design/methodology/approach: To achieve this aim first the authors identify various challenges and barriers in front of digital servitization based on the Industry 4.0 perspective. Later they determine the relative importance of these barriers critical to the success of digital servitization. Lastly one multi-criteria decision-making method the fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory method is used to analyze the cause-and-effect relationship between each barrier based on the Industry 4.0 perspective Findings: Based on the results the most crucial cause-and-effect barriers are insufficient infrastructure/lack of IT infrastructure and high implementation respectively. Therefore this study offers the reader the possible barriers to sustainable digital servitization with Industry 4.0 perspective implementations and comprehensive solutions for these barriers. In addition this study draws a roadmap for disseminating digital service applications. Originality/value: There is no study to the best of the authors’ knowledge about determining barriers and problems with merging digital servitization with the Industry 4.0 perspective. So there is still a significant gap in the literature about investigating these two essential topics from the Industry 4.0 perspective. © 2025 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.