Is Economies of Scale Driving Everything as a Service?

Everything as a Service (XaaS) is commonly understood as the general tendency to replace sales contracts with service contracts. Most research in this area agrees that XaaS is a trend, but it points to many drivers. It could be strategies improving customers’ expense model, servitization strategies,...

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Main Author: Thomas Laudal
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2025-05-01
Series:Systems
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2079-8954/13/5/356
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author Thomas Laudal
author_facet Thomas Laudal
author_sort Thomas Laudal
collection DOAJ
description Everything as a Service (XaaS) is commonly understood as the general tendency to replace sales contracts with service contracts. Most research in this area agrees that XaaS is a trend, but it points to many drivers. It could be strategies improving customers’ expense model, servitization strategies, customer feedback, mass customisation, and machine learning. However, we do not find contributions considering the relationship between XaaS and economies of scale. When sales contracts are replaced by service contracts, ownership is elevated from the customer to the provider. Thus, possible benefits from economies of scale linked to the ownership of products are then also elevated from the customer to the provider. In this article, we consider the claim that economies of scale may be an underlying driver of the XaaS trend. A review of 140 firms shows that the products with the greatest potential for economies of scale are the ones most frequently provided as a service. This suggests that economies of scale linked to ownership are an underlying driver of XaaS. Thus, ownership-related economies of scale may be a predictor of XaaS.
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spelling doaj-art-87b2b21d8e154c7096e5cbc667dc06aa2025-08-20T02:33:48ZengMDPI AGSystems2079-89542025-05-0113535610.3390/systems13050356Is Economies of Scale Driving Everything as a Service?Thomas Laudal0UiS Business School, University of Stavanger, 4021 Stavanger, NorwayEverything as a Service (XaaS) is commonly understood as the general tendency to replace sales contracts with service contracts. Most research in this area agrees that XaaS is a trend, but it points to many drivers. It could be strategies improving customers’ expense model, servitization strategies, customer feedback, mass customisation, and machine learning. However, we do not find contributions considering the relationship between XaaS and economies of scale. When sales contracts are replaced by service contracts, ownership is elevated from the customer to the provider. Thus, possible benefits from economies of scale linked to the ownership of products are then also elevated from the customer to the provider. In this article, we consider the claim that economies of scale may be an underlying driver of the XaaS trend. A review of 140 firms shows that the products with the greatest potential for economies of scale are the ones most frequently provided as a service. This suggests that economies of scale linked to ownership are an underlying driver of XaaS. Thus, ownership-related economies of scale may be a predictor of XaaS.https://www.mdpi.com/2079-8954/13/5/356Everything as a ServiceXaaSeconomies of scaledurable goodssupply chains
spellingShingle Thomas Laudal
Is Economies of Scale Driving Everything as a Service?
Systems
Everything as a Service
XaaS
economies of scale
durable goods
supply chains
title Is Economies of Scale Driving Everything as a Service?
title_full Is Economies of Scale Driving Everything as a Service?
title_fullStr Is Economies of Scale Driving Everything as a Service?
title_full_unstemmed Is Economies of Scale Driving Everything as a Service?
title_short Is Economies of Scale Driving Everything as a Service?
title_sort is economies of scale driving everything as a service
topic Everything as a Service
XaaS
economies of scale
durable goods
supply chains
url https://www.mdpi.com/2079-8954/13/5/356
work_keys_str_mv AT thomaslaudal iseconomiesofscaledrivingeverythingasaservice