From walls to experience – servitization of workplaces

Vitalija Petrulaitiene*, Pia Korba, Suvi Nenonen, Tuuli Jylhä, Seppo Junnila

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

14 Citations (Scopus)
426 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Purpose: New ways of working challenge workplace management: increasing mobility and diminishing organizational boundaries require re-evaluation of both workplace design and service delivery. However, structures and processes of workplace management are still traditional, and managers, together with outsourced facility service providers, often do not succeed at fulfilling the needs of mobile employees. The aforementioned changes stimulate discussions in many areas in both industry and academy. Nevertheless, workplace literature from business perspective seems to be scarce. In this paper, the focus is on workplace service offering for mobile knowledge workers. This paper aims to study the current state of workplace servitization. To answer this, the authors identify value offering elements that are used in office business market to deliver workplace as a service. Design/methodology/approach: This study follows multiple case study methodology including five case studies. Primary data were collected through interviews with workplace service providers. Secondary data included observations and publicly available data. The authors took business model design approach to study selected business offerings. Findings: The results indicate that workplace business models include elements of servitization on various levels. Physical space is no longer the central offering in the office business; instead, it acts as a component on which the service portfolio is built. The highest value from workplace comes from experience-related service offerings. Originality/value: Academically, research contributes to the workplace management studies by providing servitization perspective to a topic previously approached with a more technical and psychological point of view. This study can also support service providers and customer organizations in their quest to make service provision more flexible and experience-oriented.

Original languageEnglish
JournalFacilities
Volume36
Issue number9-10
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sept 2018
MoE publication typeA1 Journal article-refereed

Keywords

  • Business models
  • Facilities management services
  • Mobile work
  • Services
  • Servitization
  • Workplace

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