Aranco’s servitization trajectory: successful adaptations to punctuated equilibria

  • Bart Kamp Orkestra-Instituto Vasco de Competitividad, Deusto Business School, San Sebastián
DOI: https://doi.org/10.18543/bee.3230
Keywords: Servitization, Pay-per-use, Product-as-a-service, Outcome-based contracts, Advanced services, Digitalization, Punctuated equilibrium model, Earnings / business model innovation

Abstract

This study examines the trajectory of ARANCO, a company founded in 1988 as a distributor of packaging consumables, which successfully transformed its model to generate nearly 100% of its revenues through pay-per-use contracts. Over more than three decades, the company evolved from basic transactional relationships to embedded partnerships with customers, combining incremental and radical innovations.

Using the punctuated equilibrium model, the analysis highlights phases of stability interrupted by turning points: the decision to reinvent itself amid fierce competition (1997), the redefinition of the SIE model during the financial crisis (2007), the discovery of the strategic value of data (2017), and the validation of SIE+ during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020). These episodes triggered major shifts in ARANCO’s products, services, and the business model.

Innovations ranged from incremental improvements—such as meter-counters, more resilient films, and remote diagnostics—to radical moves, including manufacturing proprietary pallet wrapping machines, launching SIE+ with a data platform, and introducing RFID-enabled films and digital capture systems. ARANCO’s path illustrates that servitization does not occur through a single leap but via stepwise evolution. Strategic vision, experimentation with pioneering clients, and progressive technological adaptation allowed the firm to build a resilient, scalable, and differentiated service-based model in an increasingly competitive industrial environment.

Keywords: Servitization, Pay-per-use, Product-as-a-service, Outcome-based contracts, Advanced services, Digitalization, Punctuated equilibrium model, Earnings / business model innovation.

Author Biography

Bart Kamp, Orkestra-Instituto Vasco de Competitividad, Deusto Business School, San Sebastián

Lead Researcher in Internationalization and Servitization of Business at Orkestra-the Basque Institute of Competitiveness. His research focuses on international niche market leaders, the competitive strategies that contribute to market leadership, and the development and implications of servitized business models. Over a timespan of more than 30 years of professional activity, Bart has acted as researcher and consultant on e.g. innovation policy, industrial competitiveness, (foreign) investment climate, and regional development issues for multilateral institutions, governmental organizations and multinationals. He has extensively authored on these topics and has published articles in refereed journals and brought out several books on these topics. His work has appeared in Basque, Catalan, Dutch, English, Japanese, Portuguese and Spanish.
In addition to his work for Orkestra, Bart is thesis supervisor at Louvain School of Management (Belgium). Furthermore, he is a member of the editorial board to Industrial Marketing Management (Elsevier Science), which is the highest rated journal worldwide focusing on business-to-business (B2B) marketing management.
Bart has obtained academic degrees in policy sciences from the Radboud University Nijmegen (the Netherlands) and in management and organization sciences from Tilburg University (the Netherlands). He obtained a Ph.D. in organization sciences at Tilburg University.

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Published
2026-02-27
How to Cite
Kamp, Bart. 2026. “Aranco’s Servitization Trajectory: Successful Adaptations to Punctuated Equilibria”. Bulletin of Economic Studies 80 (236), 61-82. https://doi.org/10.18543/bee.3230.
Issue
Vol. 80 No. 236 (2025): Innovation in marketing and services in the context of digital transformation
Section
Articles

Copyright (c) 2026 Deusto Business Alumni

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