Abstract
Research concerning the marketing of industrial products highlights the importance of the services “surrounding” the product as sources of competitive advantage. Several attempts at classification have been put forward to characterise these services. Mathieu (1999) distinguishes those services which support the supplier’s product (SSP) and those which support client’s action (SSC) in relation to the supplier’s product. Following our work on specific cases, we have seen that other types of services do exist: client services with no direct link to the supplier’s products but whose aim is to help the client develop activity and market position, and services supporting the client’s network (SSN). This final type of service is specific to project marketing and system selling. At the end of this paper we shall underline some managerial repercussions created by such service offers.