The digital transformation of single companies and of entire service businesses is an omnipresent topic – not only in the academic discourse but also in the current public debate. The topic is often approached phenomenologically. We invited a group of well-renown scholars from different academic fields to share with us personal observations and interpretations of the digital transformation in service management in the form of individual commentaries that go beyond. The commentaries we received are based on different theoretical perspectives. They include motivations of why digital transformation makes service management research (smr) more relevant, they depict implications for service companies, and they outline research needs. This article conflates the submitted commentaries, and it is the first SMR special research paper – a paper type that will be continued in future issues to explore topics in a similar fashion that are likely to have a significant influence on the development of smr.