From Reactive to Proactive: Evaluating Business Model Innovation and Organizational Readiness in Connected Dealer Networks

Sammanfattning

This thesis investigates how independent dealers in a manufacturer-led network can transition from reactive service to proactive, data-driven uptime support based on real-time monitoring of customers’ installed bases. The purpose is to explain which organisational and operational prerequisites at dealer level make this shift possible in a dealer-mediated, digitally servitized service system. Against this backdrop, the thesis addresses the research question: What organisational and operational prerequisites enable a dealer to transition from reactive service to proactive, data-driven service based on real-time monitoring of customers’ installed bases? The study adopts a qualitative, abductive single-case design focusing on a global equipment manufacturer and its digital monitoring tool. Empirical material consists of semi-structured interviews with dealers and manufacturer representatives, complemented by observation at the manufacturer level. Analysis follows a Gioia-inspired coding procedure adapted to an abductive logic, and is structured through the dynamic capabilities perspective, operationalised as dealer-level processes, positions, and paths, with value capture logic introduced as a fourth, cross-cutting enabling condition. The findings show that proactive service develops as a distinct operating logic rather than a simple extension of reactive case handling, and that the transition depends on routinised monitoring and triage processes, strengthened digital and relational positions, and paths of accumulated experience and ownership. At the same time, the analysis reveals that even when these capability-related conditions are present, proactive service remains fragile if dealers lack a plausible value capture logic, as proactive work that is perceived as commercially ambiguous or primarily beneficial to the OEM is difficult to sustain in practice.