Service transition strategies in service-dominant settings: Towards all finance solutions in SME markets

Intense competition and extensive customer needs are motivating companies to develop so-called ‘solution’ offerings in service industries. Building on service transition strategy literature, this article outlines the practical activities that broad-based financial service providers take in transitioning towards ‘all finance’ solutions and accentuates the inhibitors that their business customers perceive in this process. The empirical data consists of 40 semi-structured interviews among two service providers and 17 of their small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) customers. The results show that the service transition strategies of service extension and relationship focus are increasingly utilized in the financial industry. However, the integration of various components within a comprehensive bank and insurance offering is still in its early stages, suggesting providers rely mainly on a pure component strategy. SME customers, who seem to have taken the role of independent value creators, fail to perceive the benefits of purchasing comprehensive offerings from a single provider. Thereby, they tend to follow price-based purchase behaviour and negotiate their service offering with many different providers.