BENEFITS OF SMART SERVICES IN MANUFACTURING COMPANIES IN THE CONTEXT OF THE GLOBAL AREA

In today's globalized environment it is not sufficient for manufacturers to only provide tangible products to their clients. Therefore, many manufacturing companies also deliver services and integrated solutions nowadays. Moreover, they focus on servitization by adopting 'smart services', which enable by connected product-service systems data exchange between their customers and the service providers. The purpose of this paper is to investigate which benefits of smart services are the most important for small and medium manufacturing companies. To address the research objective, a qualitative multi-case study was conducted among seven Czech electrotechnical SMEs, which have already started with smart service development. All of the companies included in the research are from the same industry electrotechnical producers. Although they operate in one industry, they provide a wide range of products and services to their customers with varying degrees of service orientation. The empirical data consists of in-depth interviews with owners or with experienced senior managers in the case organizations. The interviews were carried out between April 2017 and January 2018. The findings indicate the main benefits for manufacturers and also for customers. The study is unique in emphasizing the problems of smart services in SMEs in the Czech Republic, where the industrial sector is still dominant in comparison to other European countries.