Purpose –Over the past several decades, we have witnessed a transformation from an industrial product-oriented economy to a service economy in the IT-sector. The goal of the organizations is to increase their digital organizational capability by implementing digital service transformations. However, adopting a service perspective in the management of digital services continues to be a challenging process for many organizations (Brown et al. 2016). The adoption of a service perspective is not about a minor change of attitude; it is a paradigm shift for the whole IT-sector. One contemporary service perspective is service-dominant logic (SDL). In our literature analysis, we identified that the development of SDL is primarily based on theoretical insights gained from previous prior work by several scholars. We can conclude that theoretical grounding of SDL is firm, but that SDL lacks empirical evidence concerning experiences from applying SDL in the IT-projects. Consequently, the purpose of our study is to present empirical evidence from the use of SDL in an IT-project. The IT-project included the design of a digital tool for service assessment and service innovation.

Design/Methodology/approach – Our study has unfolded by means of a four-stage process: 1) Literature review of prior applications and evaluations of SDL, 2) Implementation of an IT-project concerning the development of a digital tool supporting service assessment and service innovation, guided by service-dominant logic, 3) Evaluation of SDL based on empirical experiences gained from the IT-project, 4) Formulation of complementing prescriptive guidance that overcomes the identified challenges in the IT-project. 

Findings – The findings consist of three challenges:

Challenge 1: The understanding of central conceptualizations in SDL.Challenge 2: The generic nature of SDL.Challenge 3: The lack of prescriptive guidance on how to use SDL in IT-projects.

Research limitations/implications (if applicable) – Contribution to the knowledge of how to adopt SDL in IT-projects. 

Practical implications (if applicable) – Prescriptive guidance that can support organizations in their efforts to transforming their business to become digital service oriented and increase their digital organizational capability.

Originality/value – The main discourse about SDL has been largely theoretical. Little attention has been given to how empirical evidence gained from IT-projects can be used to inform the further theoretical development and the practical use of SDL.