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Product firms are increasingly offering different types of services. This strategy, referred to as servitization, is seen as a response to a firm’s product industry evolution and the challenging industry conditions it faces. We study the industry conditions that prompt product firms to offer services, distinguishing between services that are performed on products (product- oriented services) and services that go beyond the products to provide more broadly based support for customer needs (customer-oriented services). A longitudinal analysis of 410 public firms from 1990 to 2011 demonstrates that firms are more likely to offer product-oriented services in the early stage of the industry life cycle and/or under conditions of high R&D intensity and competition, while customer-oriented services tend to be offered in the mature stage of the industry life cycle and/or in highly cyclical industries. The empirical evidence supports our …