Open Access

The mechanical and plant engineering industry faces a stagnation in the new machinery market and is relying on innovative business models such as subscription to overcome these. In this business model, individually customized solution packages are offered. The success of these models depends directly on the future success of the customer, making the selection of the right customers crucial. The aim of this paper is to identify the criteria that indicate the suitability of customers for subscription models. While there are individual descriptions of suitability criteria in the existing literature, there is a lack of comprehensive consideration of customer relationship, customer company, and customer market, as the extensive consideration was not necessary in the transactional sale of machines until now. Therefore, in this study, expert interviews are conducted with companies in mechanical and plant engineering that offer subscription models. The results show criteria that are used to evaluate customers in the six main categories of creditworthiness, market potential, benefit potential, feasibility, relationship, and sales effort. In total, 24 criteria can provide insight into the suitability of the customer for a successful subscription relationship. These criteria are intended to develop target systems that meet the requirements of different stakeholders in the customer and thus support the economic viability of these business models.