Standardizing delivery processes to support service transformation: A case of a multinational manufacturing firm

While enlarging their value proposition adding services to their product portfolio, an increasing number of manufacturing companies is suffering a lack of methods to engineer and manage the service offer effectively and efficiently. In particular, multinational companies are struggling with the complexity of organizing the service delivery process of a composite portfolio throughout their branches spread in different geographical locations and characterized by different maturity levels. This paper specifically focuses on this dilemma proposing an approach for service delivery process standardization as a mean to make the service activities uniform and similar in different units. The intent is not to create organizations all working in the same way but instead to re-use best practices and share business optimization. To achieve the research objective, a structured approach that guides the identification of a standard process and a service based reference model internal to the company are proposed. They would pursue the identification of a common taxonomy inside the company and the contextualization of the standard process into the company structure. Through a step-by-step procedure to apply the technique, an industrial application was carried out showing the practical and managerial implication coming from the adoption of the standardization approach inside the company. The outcome of the case constitutes a first step toward the development of a standard reference model for service delivery process to be adopted in multiple industries and contexts.