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Manufacturing companies are constantly increasing their efforts in the subscription business, also known as product-as-a-service business, offering usage and outcome based solutions (value-in-use) instead of transactional services and products (value-in-exchange). Customers are becoming contractual subscribers of the solution in return for recurring, performance-related payments. To address arising, inevitable challenges like (1) reducing customer churn, (2) increasing usage intensity and outcome quality, (3) ensuring the adoption of product and software releases as well as (4) fostering customer loyalty, leading manufacturing companies are setting up a new organizational, customer-facing unit, called Customer Success Management (CSM). This unit has its origins in the software-as-a-service business, operating next to established entities like sales, key account management and customer service. Since there are currently no holistic models for an end-to-end description of CSM-tasks in the manufacturing industry, this paper contributes to a taskoriented reference model, using a grounded theory approach, examining both manufacturing and software companies. Containing a reference framework with 8 main tasks, 17 basic tasks and 76 elementary tasks, the reference model supports manufacturing companies in adapting and customizing a company-specific CSM concept.
Subscription business models provide an important component for monetizing the potential of Industrie 4.0. Subscription business is based on a long-term and participative business relationship between customer and provider. However, only digitalization offers the necessary framework conditions to realize the characteristic recurring and performance-based billing, and to ensure the necessary transparency about the usage phase of products as well as continuous performance improvements in the customer process. Against this background, companies must not only recognize the much-cited potential that lies in the total dedication to the success of individual subscription customers. Rather, the central obstacles must be addressed, examined, and subsequently overcome in a targeted manner in order to successfully establish subscription business models and place them on the market.