This thesis aims to provide academic value and practical insights to a multinational industrial and engineering company referred to throughout this thesis as Company X, the collaborative partner. The research aims to address issues Company X is having in its business model development process that relate to miss alignment and inefficiencies in developing service business models. These problems were first investigated by researching the relevant literature pertaining to different types of business models, valuable frameworks, processes to orientate the development of business models and vital success factors and significant challenges. Then the original research question: How do large companies develop service business models in the manufacturing industry? It was further specified into four sub-questions, each with a specific focus. The focuses included framework, process, challenges encountered and essential success contributors. To further investigate these, Seven interviews were conducted at Company X and then analyzed using thematic analysis to relate codes from the transcripts and interview notes to themes and infer insights. These insights were then critically analyzed with regard to the literature findings. 

The findings were converted into recommendations for areas from which the academic community and Company X could benefit. The recommendations included that Company X would benefit from providing those working with business model development with orientating frameworks and processes. Along with highlighting areas, they would benefit from improving, such as aligning the local and global departments. For the academic community, one of the key findings was to emphasize customer involvement throughout the business model development process and investigate the impact of personal attributes on the success of business model development. 

This research was conducted in only one area within Company X and was limited in the number of participants and methodologies. Future research could analyze successful business models with their associated practices and attributes in contrast to unsuccessful ones using an agreed-upon metric.