Growth Through Product-Sharing Services
The authors argue that product-sharing services, where companies offer customers the use of a physical product on a limited basis at a lower cost, offer an overlooked opportunity for growth. The primary advantage of product-sharing services is that they leverage a firm’s core product development and production capabilities to expand their portfolio of offerings and market segments. A framework is developed for distinguishing likely candidates for product sharing from unlikely candidates based on product, customer, and company-strategy considerations. An empirical study of a new car-sharing service at Daimler-Benz is then used to illustrate the development of such a service, its strategic advantages, and the challenges involved.