Guest Editorial. Service-mix: new channels and consumption patterns in services

The world’s economies are dominated by services. The average value added in the services sector as percentage of GDP was 55.43% in 2021 (TheGlobalEconomy.com, 2022). In the most advanced economies, services account for an even larger share of their GDP - 75% on average (Nayyar et al., 2021). In addition to its economic relevance, a vital services sector is also increasingly important for the competitiveness of agriculture and manufacturing, as the intertwin of the product-service bundle highly enhances value for customers. Actually, manufacturers have transformed themselves in service or solution providers (Gebauer et al., 2011). The acknowledgement that services are transversal to all business sectors (Gustafsson et al., 2016) has been furthered by the recognition that today all businesses in any sector compete on service, therefore, “it makes little sense to treat service as a special case; all businesses are essentially service businesses” (Gustafsson and Kristensson, 2020, p. 609), regardless of country and context (Gustafsson and Bowen, 2017).