Financing a service-oriented manufacturer when facing the risk of bankruptcy

Abstract

In the servicization business model, a service-oriented manufacturer sells the service derived from its products. Because of the special compensation method, a service-oriented manufacturer is more likely to be underfunded. A Stackelberg game is formulated to investigate the interaction among a bank, a manufacturer, and an operator, in which two financing strategies are considered: bank financing and guaranteed (internal) financing. The difference between these two strategies is who bears the bankruptcy risk of the manufacturer. With bank financing, the bank bears the risk and determines the interest rate, while under guaranteed financing, the operator sets a guaranteed financing interest rate. We find that under bank financing, the low operating efficiency of the manufacturer increases the bank's share of the supply chain benefits. In particular, the service-oriented manufacturer can rarely be financed if the bankruptcy risk is high. However, under guaranteed financing, the operator may, interestingly, even subsidise a manufacturer with high operating efficiency. In this situation, a high bankruptcy risk could incentivize the manufacturer to improve its operating efficiency for the sake of the subsidy. Practically, guaranteed financing could coordinate the supply chain through interest rate adjustments or subsidies when facing different risk levels, which could improve both firms' benefits.