The Spring Servitization Conference (SSC2026) is dedicated to understanding how organisations develop and adapt their business models through servitization and advanced services. The 2026 conference will be held in Bochum, Germany, with the overall theme of ‘Servitization as a Multilevel Transformation: Business Models, People, Organisations, and Ecosystems’. The conference will bring together the world’s leading researchers, practitioners and doctoral students to debate and engage with the theory and practice of servitization.
SSC2026 will comprise the Servitization Doctoral Symposium (Monday 18 May) and the main Spring Servitization Conference (Tuesday 19 and Wednesday 20 May). On Monday 18 May, we will host our doctoral symposium for PhD students whose research focuses on topics related to servitization (including Product-Service Systems, services-centric business models, and service-dominant logic, etc.).
On Tuesday 19 and Wednesday 20 May, we will follow the established format of a single stream where contributors have an opportunity to present to the whole conference audience and engage in both structured and semi-structured panel sessions to discuss their work. The programme is designed to encourage extensive debate and bridge research theory and industrial practice. The conference will also feature keynote addresses from senior executives of leading manufacturing businesses. We will also dedicate some sessions to the early-stage research, which comprises interactive keynotes by leading academics in the field, debates around emergent research themes, and poster reviews of proposed projects and doctoral research. A certificate of attendance will be provided on request after the conference by email to the conference organising team.
Abstracts are invited on all aspects of servitization, but preferably those related to this year’s theme, Servitization as a Multilevel Transformation: Business Models, People, Organisations, and Ecosystems.
We welcome contributions from practitioners along with empirical studies of product manufacturers, utilities and technology vendors. We invite abstracts from a multitude of academic disciplines, including industrial engineering, marketing, strategic management, operations management, economics, information systems, psychology, work science, and others, to facilitate the interdisciplinary discourse on servitization.
Contributions are especially sought to cover the topics of:
- Service-centric business models and competitive strategies.
- Servitizing in ecosystems, supply chains, value networks, and platforms.
- Organising for servitization and service process design and management.
- Change management and participatory change in the context of servitization.
- Development of individual mindsets, motivation and competences for servitization.
- Territorial Servitization: pathways of servitization strategy adoption for regional and sectoral change.
- Country-specific issues, international comparisons, trade, economic and meta-study analyses of market and social trends in services growth.
- Technologies and capabilities enabling services (e.g. data analytics, digital twins, industrial Internet-of-Things, artificial intelligence and agents, blockchain, platforms, additive manufacturing).
- Human factors in service design and delivery.
- Systemic and ecosystem theory of servitization (e.g. service-dominant logic).
- Services marketing, solution selling, value-based selling, pricing and revenue models.
- Services finance, risk management of services, and legal contracts.
- Engineering, innovation and design aspects of advanced services and servitization.
Download the Programme and Joining Instructions, as well as the Conference Proceedings below.
Extended Abstract Guidelines
The Spring Servitization Conference is highly selective. Only papers of the highest quality will be chosen for presentation to the full audience. Therefore, this year we follow the previous year’s process to ensure that contributors get early guidance on the suitability of their contribution and how quality can be enhanced.
Please submit an extended abstract of 1,000 words (including any figures, tables and references), using the below template, via the conference website (submissions will open at the end of November). Please ensure your extended abstract comprises the following eight sections:
- Title
- Keywords
- Introduction
- Theoretical
- Background/Literature Review
- Research Methodology F
- indings (actual / expected)
- Theoretical and Practical Contributions
- References (e.g. Harvard style)
Review Process
The extended abstracts will undergo a peer-review process against the following criteria:
- Topic suitability to the conference
- Justification of the purpose
- Appropriate theoretical background
- Robustness of the applied research methodology
- Alignment between the findings/discussion and the objectives/research questions
- Relevance of contributions to theory and practice
The reviewing committee will invite successful authors to develop their extended abstract into a two-page executive summary for publishing in the conference proceedings. We will no longer be publishing proceedings with full papers, allowing authors greater flexibility to further develop their work for full journal submissions. Advanced Research contributions will be invited to the main stage whilst Evolving Research contributions will be invited to discuss their research during the research poster sessions.
Spring Servitization Conference 2026
The registration fee includes delegate access to the two-day conference and the gala dinner on the evening of Wednesday, 20th May.
| Early Bird | Late Registration | |
| Academics / Corporate | £560 | £670 |
| PhD Students | £390 | £390 |
N.B.
- Late registration fee applies from 25th April 2026.
- Registration fees can not be refunded after 25th April 2026.
Servitization Doctoral Symposium
The registration fee for the Servitization Doctoral Symposium is £470. This fee includes participation at the symposium on 18th May as well as the main Spring Servitization Conference (19th and 20th May) and the conference gala dinner on the evening of 20th May 2026.
(Only successful applicants to the Doctoral Symposium will be invited to register at the end of January 2026)
- Extended abstract deadline (1,000 words): 18th January 2026 (Submissions Closed)
- Abstract review author notification: w/c 16th February 2026
- Final submission – executive summary – deadline: 15th March 2026
Abstracts will be accepted for review on the understanding that the submitted manuscript is an original work and has not been copyrighted, published or accepted for presentation at any other conference.
We ask that contributors pay strict attention to the submission guidelines and deadlines, as not doing so will delay the review process and may result in rejection.
*(midnight UK time)
Michael Kleinaltenkamp is a Professor Emeritus at the Marketing Department of Freie Universität Berlin (Germany), where he held the position as a Professor of Business and Service Marketing and as the director of the “Executive Master of Business Marketing” programme from 1992 to 2020. Professor Kleinaltenkamp’s research and teaching focus on business-to-business and service marketing, customer success management and marketing theory.
His keynote at SSC2026 will look at bridging the long-standing divide between servitization literature and solution business and exploring how both fields can benefit from closer exchange.
Peter Glauner serves as CEO & CSO Region Europe at Wilo Group. He joined Wilo in 2002, initially leading Spare Part Management International before being appointed Director Service Germany. In 2015, he moved to the Group level as (Senior) Vice President Group Service, later assuming responsibility as SVP Region Mature Markets in 2022. Following Wilo’s transition to a regionalised organisational structure in 2025, he took on his current role, where he now leads the European region.
His keynote will provide an overview of how Wilo’s service organisation has been built over the past years, reflecting the growing strategic importance of services and the integration of servitization across all levels of the company, from corporate vision to day-to-day operations. Building on Wilo’s regionalisation in 2025 and recent advances in the use of AI in service activities, he will outline a roadmap for sustaining momentum and further advancing servitization across a complex, multinational organisation.
Dr Dorothee Becker is the Chief Executive Officer of Gebr. Becker GmbH, a globally operating mechanical engineering company headquartered in Wuppertal, Germany, employing around 900 people. She is responsible for the strategic leadership and development of the company, which specialises in the manufacturing of vacuum pumps and compressors for industrial applications.
Dr Becker holds a doctorate in economics (Dr. rer. oec.) and a degree in economics from Ruhr University Bochum.
Anton Feld is Director of Value-Added Services within Commercial Solutions & Pricing in Global Revenue Operations at KARL STORZ. He has more than 15 years of experience in service management in the MedTech and healthcare industry, with a focus on developing and implementing value-added service offerings. Anton Feld holds an MBA in Sales and Service Engineering.
The Servitization Doctoral Symposium will precede the Spring Servitization Conference and will be held in Bochum (exact location will be confirmed soon). The main objectives of the Symposium are to:
(i) develop a common knowledge base within the community of PhD students in servitization research,
(ii) provide a chance for the doctoral students to present and obtain feedback on their research from leading academics in the field, and
(iii) foster the development of a community of early-career researchers in the field of servitization, which could become a forum for exchanging ideas and building research collaboration in the future.
The symposium is selective, and we have up to 15 spaces available each year. Ideally, student participants will have completed one or two years of doctoral study or progressed far enough in their research to have a structured proposal idea and some preliminary findings, but have not reached the stage of defending their dissertations. Only those students with the most relevant research to servitization and high-quality proposals will be chosen to participate.
Successful applicants to the doctoral symposium will also gain automatic access to the Spring Servitization Conference on 19th and 20th May 2026.
Application Process
You need to complete and submit the online application form in addition to uploading the following documents:
- A research proposal (max 3 pages, using the provided template)
- A two-page Curriculum Vitae (CV)
- One of their latest publications (if they have one).
Important Dates
Applications and associated documents must be submitted by: 18th January 2026* (Submissions Closed).
Notification: The application decision will be circulated w/c 16th February 2026.
(Only successful applicants to the Doctoral Symposium will be invited to register)
The main conference will be held at the ZESS (Research Centre for the Engineering of Smart Product Service Systems)
Address: Hans-Dobbertin-Str. 8, 44803 Bochum, Germany
Directions: https://maps.app.goo.gl/1N93nGpSBEix1ipA9
The venue of the Doctoral Symposium will be announced soon. Full details will be shared with selected candidates by the end of January 2026.
There is a great selection of hotels in Bochum. Please follow the link below to view some options that are recommended by the local organising team, both in terms of their quality and distance from the conference venue.
- Holiday Inn Express Bochum (2omin tram journey to the Conference Venue)
- Four Points Flex by Sheraton Bochum (24min tram journey)
- Mercure Hotel Bochum City (17min tram journey)
For any questions regarding the guidelines, submissions, or other inquiries, please get in touch with us at abs_ssc2026@aston.ac.uk
