Bringing upcoming technologies to a service life: Assessing required provider and customer capabilities

Abstract

New technologies such as blockchain are predicted to enable new service offers and ways to conduct service operations. While the technological possibilities have been explored intensively, the adoption rate among many service companies is still slow based on current technology adoption observations. An important reason for the slow adoption is missing capabilities among service companies and customers. We develop a theoretical framework that is embedded within the customer-dominant logic and recognises that many technology-based services also require specific competencies from customers in order to use them effectively. The framework explains which organisational capabilities are required to successfully explore and exploit new technologies, and also includes the capabilities required of customers to effectively use the new services. The paper aims at making a theoretically-grounded and practical contribution to understanding of which capabilities are required to allow organisations to explore and exploit new technologies.