In response to stagnating sales and profit developments, industrial companies have been expanding their business activities into industrial services for several years. However, the associated hope of achieving above-average growth rates and returns has not materialized for many firms. Mark Beyer examines how industrial companies diversify into the service business and which coordinated changes in particularly critical design parameters of corporate management promise a sustainable professionalization of the industrial service business along this growth process. Based on resource- and competence-based considerations and through three case studies, he develops an explanatory model for a service-driven corporate transformation. The sustainable success of this transformation is derived from path-dependent changes.