Digital Capabilities to Support Digital Product-Service Systems

The advent of digital technologies enabled new Product Service Systems (PSSs) grounded by digital capabilities, i.e. digital PSS. Although the literature has already begun to explore some cases of PSS offerings supported by digital technologies, it remains a considerable gap about the role of digital capabilities in new PSS solutions provided by product firms. In this context, the purpose of this study is to answer the important question: how digital capabilities support different types of PSSs? Following Cusumano’s et al. (2014) division of PSS offerings according to the role of service, i.e. smoothing, adapting and substituting, we conducted interviews in Brazilian companies representing these types of PSS. These cases were selected because the PSS offerings were supported by digital technologies. Our findings show that the digital capabilities can have different implications in PSS and that their im-portance variates according to the role of services in adding value to the digital PSS offering. Particular-ly, product monitoring digital capabilities were highlighted as relevant for all types of PSSs, while optimization and autonomy digital capabilities were stated as important only to higher value-added offers.