Ricardo Guerrero

• Given the profound changes in the demand for new innovative ways of developing and delivering services, the so-called “personal services” are responding to the digital challenge by using different approaches and at varying speed. Personal services are those services that can be found in sectors such as education, retail, hospitality (hotels, restaurants), craftmanship, art and entertainment. These are services that have been for so long designed around the idea that they only require “high-touch” personal encounters. However, due to the fact that the world today is becoming more digitalized and is heading towards what is known as a “digital revolution”, firms from this sector must look for new and alternative ways on how to adapt their business models, organizational structures, and service offerings, especially by taking advantage of the use and application of digital technologies. Thus, leading these firms to avoid what could be a long-term business collapse. Despite the fact that it is true that certain companies within this industry such as Airbnb, VR-All-Art, or HelloFresh have managed to disrupt traditional business paradigms, even leading to building billion-dollar businesses, the reality is that personal services represent one of the few service sectors struggling the most to achieve the transition from analog to digital and thus, primarily rely on traditional and analog business models. Guidance regarding the path towards becoming digital is lacking. To fill out this gap, this Ph.D. thesis aims to introduce a maturity model as a strategic and systematic instrument that help personal service firms to assess their current developmental digitalization stage and show trajectories for improvements to guide the transition from an analog towards a stage of “digital maturity” in a holistic and well-structured manner.