Analysis of Integrated Product and Service Offerings from Current Perspectives of Providers and Customers

This paper reports the current status of how companies address IPSO (Integrated Product and Service Offerings)-typed business. It will consist of perspectives both from providers and customers mainly from Sweden and Germany. Especially, it selects how providing firms address uncertainty as one focal issue. As a result of interviews, factors from customers are the major source of uncertainty for an experienced company, while services are the major for little experienced companies. In addition, there was found to be a reasonable wish of providers to obtain a formalized way leading to quantitative management of uncertainty. On the other hand, customer incentives are not always clear. While some customers find the IPSO preferable from economic reasons other customers have the opposite recognition.