Assessing the financial aptitude of industrial firms to implement servitised earnings models

Servitization research covers a large variety of aspects related to novel earning models, like pay-per-use schemes or other outcome-oriented charging modalities. However, it may overlook aspects related to bookkeeping and financing such operations. The article introduces the concept of financial aptitude to hypothesize under which circumstances industrial firms are more likely to introduce servitized earnings models or not. It builds upon insights from management reporting an financialization theories for that purpose. It postulates that activity-based cost accounting and interaction with organizations that specialize in the financing and/or managing of industrial assets raise the propensity to take up servitized earnings models.