Service triads:a research agenda for buyer–supplier–customer triads in business services

Service triads, in which a buyer contracts with a supplier to deliver services directly to the buyer's customer, represent an emerging business model. This special issue is dedicated to this theme. To set the context, in this lead article, we first define service triads, both as a phenomenon and a research topic. We then provide a review of different strands of existing research and various theoretical frameworks that can inform our study of service triads. This culminates in an outline of a research agenda that can guide future study. As such, this paper not only introduces the articles in the special issue, but is also intended as a point of reference and motivation for further work on service triads, and on triads in general

New Business Models and Configuration Approaches for Focused-Flexibility Manufacturing Systems

In the current competitive scenario, industrial companies experience frequent unexpected changes in production demand. To cope with them, they often opt for investments in manufacturing technologies which embed extra-flexibility that is rarely utilized and that, consequently, penalizes financial and operational performance. In this paper, new business models for focused-flexibility manufacturing systems are proposed to improve manufacturing performances in turbulent environments and to increase machine builders competitiveness though the offering of high value-added services. These innovative business models should be enabled by the adoption of new integrated methods for the joint production system-business model configuration. Starting from the available state of the art on production systems configuration, the paper illustrates research activities in progress to finalize the development of such methodological enablers for new flexibility-oriented business models