Exploring Service-led Growth Trajectories for Analytical Equipment Providers

This paper examines the dilemmas encountered by advanced analytical equipment providers in developing service-led growth strategies to expand their business in pursuit of more attractive revenue models. It does so by adopting a case based research approach. The findings detail the capabilities required to provide advanced services within customers’ R&D functions, while simultaneously attempting to scale these for a production context. The emergent complexities of operating in multiple arenas in order to explore and exploit technologies-along the three trajectories of serviceability, scalability and solutions-in different contexts, with a view to expanding markets and developing solution based business models, are discussed. It is argued that analytical equipment providers encounter dilemmas as managing these different trajectories implies different needs in terms of the technological sophistication of equipment required. This does not necessarily imply that one context is less complex than the other, but rather suggests that the role of integration is qualitatively different and that the relationship between product and service varies when developing solutions in these different arenas.