During their transition to servitization, some industrial firms choose to establish alliances with new partners or strengthen their relationships with historical partners. These companies rethink the management practices of their alliance portfolios in line with a new strategic orientation. This study seeks to identify the contextual factors that hinder the development of new alliance portfolio management capabilities necessary to advance servitization within organizations. Through an exploratory qualitative research approach and a single case study focusing on the historical alliance portfolio of an industrial firm undergoing servitization, we identified three key barriers to the development of new alliance portfolio management capabilities: the absence of a defined strategy for the alliance portfolio, a strong product-centered strategic orientation within the portfolio, and insufficient consideration of partners' evolving strategic directions. Our study enhances the understanding of alliance portfolio management in a servitization context by emphasizing the need for companies transitioning to servitization to rethink their alliance portfolio management capabilities. It also offers practical recommendations for firms seeking to servitize, encouraging them to evolve their alliance portfolio practices, as failing to do so could directly hinder the successful implementation of their servitization strategy.
