Data-Based Value Co-Creation in Smart Service Systems: A Reinterpretation of Customer Journey

Industry 4.0 is characterized by the key role of new technologies in the development of relationships between companies and their stakeholders. Thus, the most recent theories on service redefine organizations as complex service systems that create and co-create value thanks to the interactions between actors, enhanced by smart technologies and ICTs. In particular, the concept of service systemsintroduced in Service Scienceseems to be suitable for the exploration of how service design, and the processes of innovation sharing and emergence, can be strengthened thanks to the application of smart technologies. Despite the adoption of a system logic, service systems, and their conceptualization, need to be reinterpreted according to a perspective that applies a total and all-encompassing view to the processes of value generation and to the interpretation of the information and data exchanged (data-driven decision-making). Therefore, the study proposes a conceptual model that integrates the key enabling factors of value co-creation in service systems with the main strategic drivers introduced in data-driven approach to redefine the entire service experience as a service journey. In this continuous information flow, providers, customers and users share and combine data streams, to be turned into relevant information and value, through an integrated and interacting set of touch points that connect the different stages of service creation, delivery and co-creation.


Introduction
In today's interconnected world, the huge amount of data available to companies, at an increasingly rapid pace, unimaginable until a few years ago, reshapes inevitably the social and economic configuration of markets, by determining the transition to the so-called industry 4.0 (Kagermann, Lukas, & Wahlster, 2011). The opportunities offered by multi-channel strategies (Rangaswamy & Van Bruggen, 2005;Neslin et al., 2006), a key feature of 4.0 Marketing (Cao & Li, 2015), increase the possibilities for companies to interact with customers and partners, by making communication and information/data exchange potentially continuous. However, if on the one hand the multiplication of the points of contact and interaction between organizations and their stakeholders, the so-called touchpoints, seems to offer an immeasurable benefit, on the other hand there is still the need to shed light on the way in which data flows can be optimized. In this way, the potentiality of smart technologies and ICTs (information and communication technologies) can be exploited fully by preventing the risk of transforming technological opportunities into threats (Gandomi & Haider, 2015). Therefore, companies need to adopt an orientation aimed at exploring and seizing consumers' motivations, attitudes and behaviours across the multiple technological channels available for stakeholders' relationships management. There is, thus, the urgent need to understand how the new technologies (from ICTs to marketing analytics and engagement platforms) can redefine decision-making process both of the organizations (Neslin et al., 2006) and of consumers, which, at any time, can exchange, co-create and reframe their opinions mutually.
In the light of the impact of Big Data on the efficiency of business decisions, a new research stream has been proposed in knowledge and information management: the data-driven decision-making (DDDM, LaValle, Lesser, Shockley, Hopkins, & Kruschwitz, 2011;Brynjolfsson, Hitt, & H. Kim, 2011). Based on the adoption of an all-embracing data-mind-set, this approach can enable a better understanding of how the use of contemporary technological tools can increase the efficiency of business decision-making (Erevelles, Fukawa, & Swayne, 2016;Ortiz-Repiso et al., 2018). Therefore, the study aims at reinterpreting contemporary complex organizations as smart service systems according to a data-driven perspective that can permit to explore: 1) how ICTs can act as enablers of value and potential innovation; 2) how to optimize and manage strategically data, information and value through the multiple technological channels connecting users and providers.
In fact, the existing technology platforms and analytics provide both companies and customers/users with interconnected touchpoints that facilitate and intensify their processes of choice reciprocally. At the same time, the moments of interactions users-providers (service encounter) are multiplied, by virtualizing experiences (service experience) and broadening increasingly customer journey (Lemon & Verhoef, 2016;Voorhees et al., 2017) to create a totalizing service journey.
Despite the recognized need, formalized in literature, to analyse the role of technology as a driver for value co-creation, until now the identification of the key strategic factors for an efficient and responsible use of smart technologies has not yet been advanced (Breidbach & Maglio, 2016;Lim & Maglio, 2019). Therefore, the work introduces a conceptual model based on the adoption of a data-driven approach to the study of smart service systems that can attempt to address the following research questions: RQ 1: what are the key enabling factors for the transformation of data into information and potential new value?
RQ 2: what are the main steps for data management that can foster value co-creation within the service journey, between business decision-making process and consumers' buying decisions?
To address the research questions, the work proposes a rereading of the main dimensions of smart service systems according to a data-driven approach to introduce, lastly, a conceptual framework in which the main steps of data management in data-driven smart service systems are identified. The classification of the main dimensions of smart service systems (see paragraph 2) and DDDM (see paragraph 3) derives from a critical re-elaboration of extant studies on Service Science and on information management and business decisions.

Smart Service Systems and the Main Enabling Factors for Value Co-Creation
In the light of current complexity, extant research on services marketing frames contemporary markets, according to a dynamic and process-based view, as interconnected relationships networks (Chandler & Vargo, 2011) in which each member is related strictly to the others and contributes actively to the constant reshaping of system's value.
In particular, in Service Science (Spohrer, Maglio, Bailey, & Gruhl, 2007) such networked organizations are defined as service systems, that are "value co-creation configurations of people, technologies, value propositions, that interact with other service systems internally and externally through shared information" (Spohrer, Vargo, Caswell, & Maglio, 2008).
The reformulation of markets as service systems complies with the necessity for the investigation of technology-based value co-creation aimed at exploring how the systems connectivity can raise thanks to an harmonized set of technologies, the Internet of Things (Iot, Atzori, Iera, & Morabito, 2010), that helps managing data flows within and between service systems.
In line with the advent of new technologies, however, the concept of service system has been revised and widened in order to meet the challenges of markets digitization (Lim, Maglio, K. Kim, M. Kim, & K. Kim, 2016). For this reason, the notion of smart service systems (Barile & Polese, 2010) has been proposed to define intelligent service systems in which the co-creation of value is based on four key dimensions (Lim & Maglio, 2019): 1) connection between people and things; 2) communication; 3) data collection; 4) computation.
The transition from service systems to smart service systems can be understood as the outcome of the acknowledged need to adopt a data-based approach to the study of value co-creation emergence. Hence, the reinterpretation of service systems through the lens of smartness can contribute to highlight the implications of ICTs on the interactions people-organizations, on their information sharing and on the entire technological architecture, which enables and intensifies exchanges and creates new relational modalities.
The dynamic and unrepeatable combination of these elements can give birth to value co-creation and to the  (Ng, 2015). f the service sy t technologies etween people ple are stren mension 1: con "smart" dimen nd analysis (" mputation).  Vol. 15, No. 4; ability to undertake efficient decisions can be improved thanks to the extraction of insights from data and to the continuous and dynamic adaptation to environmental changes (Medina-Borja, 2015).
From a technological standpoint (Järvinen & Karjaluoto, 2015), then, it is necessary to implement a proper architecture (integrated infrastructure) that allows at gathering, extrapolating and managing information by increasing data accessibility and reducing complexity (Patron & Chaffey, 2012).
Next, to extract relevant information from data, human intervention is needed through the application of technical and managerial skills (J. Chen et al., 2013;Gupta & George, 2016) that can transform data into (oriented) information, (finalized) knowledge and new value. Users and providers should be able to derive utility from data according to their own objectives. If, on the one hand, the main organizational purpose is to align decisions with strategies, users aim at gaining benefits from the purchase of services, by increasing their knowledge and experience and aligning their needs with system's goal.
Thanks to an effective integration and use of information, the value can arise if, thanks to multiple service encounters, data is "used", reconfigured and directed towards common purposes. This complex process, however, requires a careful management of information (process management) between heterogeneous data sources ('O Neal, 2012) which are, then, processed and optimized within the different organizational contexts of the various systems between the multiple touch points in a recursive logic.
Finally, the circularity of the data-driven process shows that, to manage the insight extracted, technical and management skills and people creativity (Baccarani, 2011) can lead to undertake more effective decisions (related to purchase and re-purchase, for users, and to management or marketing strategies, for the organization). This effectiveness can improve consistently over time by pursuing sustainable competitive advantage, co-evolution and continuous improvement.
Therefore, thanks to the integrated and process-based view proposed herein, the main elements of smart service systems can be reframed based on the key dimensions of data-driven approach, as Figure 2 shows, by means of the following propositions: 1) The adoption of a data-driven culture devoted to continuous learning and to the constant enrichment of knowledge, starting from the data collected, selected and interpreted, implies the re-focusing of organization's strategic objectives towards the internalization of a learning orientation; 2) the connection between people and organizations is enhanced through an integrated infrastructure composed of smart technologies (the central part of Figure 2) that includes sensors, cloud computing systems, mobile applications, software, platforms, etc.; 3) the increased connectivity enriches users-providers encounters thanks to the multiplication of the possibilities of interaction and communication, by improving data integration from different sources and different systems. Data incorporation, that allows resources combination, can result in increased skills of the people involved in the process, by enabling continuous collection of data (such as user's opinions, data on purchasing transactions, etc.) and by transforming the (raw) data into (oriented and relevant) information; 4) the computation of information, carried out by means of an integrated set of analytics, is supervised by decision-makers through process management and optimization that facilitate the transformation of information into knowledge and encourage the emergence of data-based value co-creation; 5) the value, generated from the synergistic knowledge exchanges, is stored within the organization, and "accumulated" as new value and knowledge useful for the stimulation of continuous improvement.  Vol. 15, No. 4; relevant information (data interpretation); 6) co-creation of new value (data storage for continuous improvement).
The adoption of a systems and process-based view can allow at espousing a synthesis perspective that mediates between: 1) the exploration of the enabling elements for value co-creation (RQ1, technologies, information exchange, skills, process management); 2) the way in which these elements can be harmonized to create new value (rq2, data management stages, transformation of data into information and value).
Therefore, from a theoretical point of view, the work contributes to shed light on the transformative role of technology (Akaka et al., 2019), by advancing the first steps to address a gap deriving from extant research on Service Science. In fact, a focus on the analysis of the technological drivers for value co-creation can be revealed that implies a lack of studies that do not investigate adequately how new value can be co-created in complex service systems (Breidbach and Maglio, 2016). The proposition of a synthesis view permits to conceptualize not only the enabling elements for value co-creation but also the modalities for the dynamic combination of these elements to turn data-information-knowledge into value and renew value for continuous improvement.
Moreover, the suggestion of a model that describes the different phases for data analysis (and the multiple touchpoints that organizations can introduce to differentiate omnichannel strategies at each phase) can reveal new data-driven methods to drive customer satisfaction and deliver actionable insights (Lemon and Verhoef, 2016).
From a managerial point of view, the introduction of a classification with the different phases of data-driven decision-making can help managers understanding how to redefine their strategies and business tactics, business models and marketing decisions and management thanks to the most appropriate strategies for data management.
By categorizing the multiplicity of technological instruments, resources and data management phases for value co-creation, the study can stimulate decision-makers to redefine service exchanges as journeys to take advantage from the insights collected at each stage of the process. The ability to manage and integrate the use of multiple technological channels with the pursuit of the main marketing objectives -such as the increase of users' engagement, the improvement of relationships with customers (CRM) or the attainment of loyalty-can contribute to the creation and co-creation of value along the entire supply chain and to the attainment of continuous improvement. Thanks to the integration of different touchpoints, managers can be encouraged to develop differentiated omnichannel strategies for different targets and for different phases of the journey to increase engagement and, then, the creation of new knowledge.
Moreover, the study debates the key role of managerial orientation and attitude to the use of technology and to the dissemination of a common set of values for the efficient employment of ICTs. By emphasizing the need for a proactive and innovation-oriented mind-set, the model proposed can help developing strategies to manage the smart technologies and to exploit the various possibilities offered by the different types of existing tools (to predict users' perception, to detect the "sentiment", to store users' behaviour, to foster loyalty or the improvement of the service). In this way, the strong impact of technology on service improvement and on the production of innovation and sustainable value is highlighted.
The main limitation of the work is related to the conceptual nature of the analysis that re-conceptualizes data-driven approach and service journey based on a critical re-elaboration of literature without conducting an empirical research. The study can be intended as a first conceptual step for future research aimed at performing qualitative observation and/or measurement of data-based value co-creation.
Thus, the application of a case study could corroborate, modify, extend or further specify the conceptual model introduced. The multidimensional nature of the model and the complexity of the concepts analysed require the adoption of a mixed method and the combination of multiple techniques such as semi-structured interviews, focus groups, observation. For this reason, in an exploratory stage, the qualitative approach can be the most suitable methodological framework to understand in depth the processes of decision-making and information management in data-driven organizations.
Future empirical research based on the model herein developed could examine a specific service sector. In particular, the application to B2B marketing could permit to emphasize the importance of customer relations to perform an analysis that goes beyond the differences between users' and providers' roles. In particular, organizations such as consulting firms, which operate between B2B and B2C markets, are devoted to the adoption of multi-channel marketing strategies and could be suitable for the analysis of the impact of data on the redefinition of business strategies and on the relationship between value co-creation and innovation (data-driven innovation).