Salesperson's customer orientation in the personal selling process and in the use of personal selling techniques in the business-to-business setting

Selling is much maligned, often under-valued subject whose inadequate showing in business schools is in inverse proportion to the many job opportunities it offers and the importance of salespeople bringing incomes to companies. The purpose of this research is to increase the understanding of customer-oriented selling and examine the influence of customer-oriented philosophy on selling process, the applicability of selling techniques to this philosophy and the importance of them to salespeople. The empirical section of the study is two-fold. Firstly, the data of qualitative part was collected by conducting five thematic interviews among sales consultants and case company representatives. The findings of the study indicate that customer-oriented selling requires the activity of salespeople. In the customer-oriented personal selling process, salespeople invest time in the preplanning, the need analysis and the benefit demonstration stages. However, the findings propose that salespeople today must also have the basic capabilities for executing the traditional sales process, and the balance between traditional and consultative selling process will change as the duration of the relationship between the salesperson and customer increases. The study also proposes that selling techniques still belong to the customer-oriented selling process, although their roles might be modest. This thesis mapped 75 selling techniques and the quantitative part of the study explored what selling techniques are considered to be important by salespeople in direct selling industry when they make sales with new and existing customers. Response rate of the survey was 69.5%.

Phase voltage control and filtering in a converter-fed single-phase customer-end system of the LVDC distribution network

In recent years, the network vulnerability to natural hazards has been noticed. Moreover, operating on the limits of the network transmission capabilities have resulted in major outages during the past decade. One of the reasons for operating on these limits is that the network has become outdated. Therefore, new technical solutions are studied that could provide more reliable and more energy efficient power distributionand also a better profitability for the network owner. It is the development and price of power electronics that have made the DC distribution an attractive alternative again. In this doctoral thesis, one type of a low-voltage DC distribution system is investigated. Morespecifically, it is studied which current technological solutions, used at the customer-end, could provide better power quality for the customer when compared with the current system. To study the effect of a DC network on the customer-end power quality, a bipolar DC network model is derived. The model can also be used to identify the supply parameters when the V/kW ratio is approximately known. Although the model provides knowledge of the average behavior, it is shown that the instantaneous DC voltage ripple should be limited. The guidelines to choose an appropriate capacitance value for the capacitor located at the input DC terminals of the customer-end are given. Also the structure of the customer-end is considered. A comparison between the most common solutions is made based on their cost, energy efficiency, and reliability. In the comparison, special attention is paid to the passive filtering solutions since the filter is considered a crucial element when the lifetime expenses are determined. It is found out that the filter topology most commonly used today, namely the LC filter, does not provide economical advantage over the hybrid filter structure. Finally, some of the typical control system solutions are introduced and their shortcomings are presented. As a solution to the customer-end voltage regulation problem, an observer-based control scheme is proposed. It is shown how different control system structures affect the performance. The performance meeting the requirements is achieved by using only one output measurement, when operating in a rigid network. Similar performance can be achieved in a weak grid by DC voltage measurement. An additional improvement can be achieved when an adaptive gain scheduling-based control is introduced. As a conclusion, the final power quality is determined by a sum of various factors, and the thesis provides the guidelines for designing the system that improves the power quality experienced by the customer.

Customer consciousness in the production process of a steel factory

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the level of customer consciousness of the production process employees in a steel factory and to investigate the methods of internal marketing in order to propose development practices to enhance the customer consciousness of the case company employees. The significance of the level of customer consciousness is discussed and practices already implemented affecting the level of customer consciousness in the company are examined. The literature review gives an insight to the role of customer consciousness in the CRM philosophy of a manufacturing company and examines the means of internal marketing in enhancing customer consciousness. In the empirical part of the study, the level and significance of customer consciousness is determined by conducting individual and focus group interviews. The interviews are also used to examine the practices that could function in enhancing the customer consciousness of the employees. Development suggestions to improve the level of customer consciousness in the production process are given based on the results. The level of customer consciousness is at a poor level in the production process and influences above all on work motivation and job satisfaction, but possibly on customer satisfaction as well. The enhancement of customer consciousness in the production process should be done e.g. by ensuring the distribution of right knowledge coherently to all of the employees, gathering large customer reference database to exploit in work and in training, using visual illustration in presenting the customer information, training proactively and letting the employees to participate in the customer oriented development activities. Customer satisfaction focused reward system can be considered.

Strategic supply chain alignment to customer buying behavior

In search for competitive advantage, designing and managing supply chain networks have become a necessary competence for organizations. The target of this thesis is to answer a question, how to design a multiple supply chain network. The purpose is to study, what kind of different supply chain designs exist and, how to choose appropriate supply chain designs for a company. In the thesis, the focus is on the supply chain alignment to customers, more specifically to customer buying behavior. The research method was a case study. A framework for measuring customer buying behavior was developed based on the literature and it was used in the study of customer buying behavior in the case environment. In the case company structured interviews and data records were used as sources of evidence. Persons working in the customer-interface were interviewed face-to-face and through an e-mail questionnaire. When analyzing the data, a Quality function deployment matrix was used as one analysis method. As a result of the thesis, supply chain network of the case company is proposed to be divided into three separate supply chains, which focus on different areas and they could be called lean, agile and continuous replenishment supply chains. In conclusion, in the supply chain alignment to customer buying behavior several aspects have to be studied from different perspectives. According to the results, a multiple supply chain strategy is recommended to be implemented in the case company, since the diversity of the customer needs cannot be managed efficiently through a single supply chain.

Customer Driven Service Development – Technology-based Care and Services for the Elderly

The objective of this master’s thesis was to examine technology-based smart home devices and services. Topic was approached through basic theories, transaction cost theory and resource-based view in order to build basis for this thesis. Conceptual framework was discussed by means of networks, value networks and service systems which provide a useful framework for service development. The needs of the elderly living at home were discussed in order to find out which technology-based services could be used to satisfy the needs. Segmentation and need data collected previously during proactive home visits was exploited and additionally a survey targeted to experts and professionals of social and health care sector was done to verify the needs. Finally, the results of the survey were analyzed using quality function deployment method to figure out the most important and suitable service offerings for the elderly. As a conclusion of analysis, social media and monitoring services are the most useful technology-based services. However, traditional home services will still maintain their necessity too.

Components of customer value in nurse call solutions

This study aimed to identify the value components of nurse call solutions. The value creation of such systems was analyzed by using a framework that was created based on the existing customer value literature. The empirical part of the study was conducted as a multiple-case study by using qualitative research methods. The data for the analysis was gathered through structured interviews in ten Finnish eldercare centers. The results indicate that a nurse call solution creates value for eldercare centers by increasing the safety of the residents, and by improving the efficiency of the staff while also providing cost savings.

CRM system implementation for managing customer relationships in business-to-business markets

Tutkielman tavoitteena oli selvittää, kuinka CRM-järjestelmä otetaan käyttöön asiakkuuksienhallinnan tueksi yritysten välisillä markkinoilla. Tutkielma keskittyy erityisesti käyttöönoton varhaisiin vaiheisiin selvittämällä, mikä on järjestelmien rooli asiakkuudenhallinnassa ja miten ne tukevat erilaisia käyttäjätasoja, jotka työssä jaettiin strategiseksi, operatiiviseksi ja analyyttiseksi tasoksi. Lisäksi työ esittelee käyttöönottoon yleisimmin liittyviä sudenkuoppia. Tutkielma on laadullinen tutkimus ja siinä on kuvattu CRM-järjestelmän käyttöönottoon liittyviä kysymyksiä yritysten välisillä markkinoilla toimivan caseyrityksen näkökulmasta. Tutkimuksessa havaittiin, että CRM-järjestelmän onnistunut käyttöönotto vaatii mahdollisimman yksinkertaista ja helppokäyttöistä järjestelmää. Käyttöönoton ei myöskään tulisi vaatia monimutkaista koulutusta, vaikkakin koulutusten tärkeys tunnistettiin. Tutkimus osoitti, että vaikka tämänhetkiset CRM-järjestelmät keskittyvät enemmän yksityiskohtaisten asiakasanalyysien tekoon, järjestelmä voi myös palvella asiakkaisiin liittyvän tiedon yhteisenä tallennus- ja jakamispaikkana. Lisäksi tutkimuksessa todettiin, että useimmiten potentiaaliset sudenkuopat olivat luonteeltaan hyvin käytännönläheisiä, kuten järjestelmän käyttämättömyys sekä huono motivointi ja sitouttaminen.

Utilisation of customer contacts: customer observation

Importance of customer as a source of knowledge and finding out the customer needs have both been emphasised both in business literature and in the interviews made for this study. Especially the latent customer needs are seen important for future competitiveness. However, the methods for finding out the customer needs concentrate on the present, clearly phrased needs. There is a need for rich customer based knowledge. Customer contacts are underutilised as a source of knowledge. The objective of this study is to find a method to utilise the customer contacts as a source of knowledge more efficiently. To reach this objective, the customer observation is presented. A concrete goal is the development of a general method of customer observation and its application to the needs of the case company Fastems. Fastems hopes that the method raises the amount of ideas that come to the product and service development processes and increases their customer orientation. The method is tested in practise in the piloting stage. The testing is done in service organisations of Fastems in several countries. The observations received during the piloting phase are analysed and feedback is given to the observers. An important part of the study is to find appropriate methods for motivating the observers. The successful implementation and sustenance of the method are seen as goals of high importance. Later on, the customer observation method is implemented throughout the company. The results of the piloting are promising and the described method has roused interest among other companies as well.

Asiakasräätälöidyn tuotteen vaihtoprojektin kehittäminen palvelutuotannossa

Työ on tehty Lindström Oy:lle tavoitteena löytää tuotevaihtoprojektien kulminaatiopisteet, joissa prosessin sujuvuutta, tiedonhallintaa ja toimintamalleja voitaisiin kehittää. Tavoitteena oli hyödyntää teoriatiedon ja empiirisen tutkimuksen tietämys toimintamalleiksi asiakasräätälöityjen tuotteiden vaihtoprojektissa. Tarkoituksena on ollut huomioida elinkaarihallinta osana tuotekehitystä sekä tuotetiedon hallinta ja sen ohjaava vaikutus projektin eri vaiheissa. Asiakaslähtöisyys ja elinkaarihallinta sekä tietojohtaminen ovat olleet tutkimuksen näkökulmina. Työssä yhdistettiin teorian pohjustama tuotetieto, tuotekehityksen prosessit sekä projektihallinta empiirisen tutkimustuloksen luomiksi kehittämisehdotuksiksi. Tuotevaihtoprojekteihin luotiin kaksi toimintamallia, joissa hyödynnetään tiedon kerääntymistä tietojärjestelmiin. Tuloksissa elinkaarihallinta ehdotetaan linkitettäväksi osaksi tuotekehitysprosessia, jolloin asiakkaan saama arvon lisäys on suoraan taloudellisestikin mitattavissa. Lisäksi työn tuloksena ehdotetaan, että tuotekehityksen systemaattista tiedon keruuta alkuvaiheessaan kehitetään sekä asiakkaan tarvetiedon tarkempaa ja määritellympää tiedon kirjaamista lisätään, tietojärjestelmien suomin mahdollisuuksin.

Customer reference marketing and utilization of social media as an integral part of customer references

The objective of this Bachelor's Thesis is to find out the role of social media in the B-to-B marketing environment of the information technology industry and to discover how IT-firms utilize social media as a part of their customer reference marketing. To reach the objectives the concepts of customer reference marketing and social media are determined. Customer reference marketing can be characterized as one of the most practically relevant but academically relatively overlooked ways in which a company can leverage its customers and delivered solutions and use them as references in its marketing activities. We will cover which external and internal functions customer references have, that contribute to the growth and performance of B-to-B firms. We also address the three mechanisms of customer reference marketing which are 'status transfer', 'validation through testimonials' and 'demonstration of experience and prior performance'. The concept of social media stands for social interaction and creation of user-based content which exclusively occurs through Internet. The social media are excellent tools for networking because of the fast and easy access, easy interaction and vast amount of multimedia attributes. The allocation of social media is determined. The case company helps clarify the specific characteristics of social media usage as part of customer-reference-marketing activities. For IT-firms the best channels to utilize social media in their customer reference marketing activities are publishing and distribution services of content and networking services.

Customer relationship management through life cycle analysis, case professional service firm in B2B market

The objective of this master’s thesis was to study how customer relationships should be assessed and categorized in order to support customer relationship management (CRM) in the context of business-to-business (B2B) and professional services. This sophisticated and complex market is utilizing possibilities of CRM only rarely and even then the focus is often on technology. The theoretical part considered first CRM from the value chain point of view and then discussed the cyclical nature of relationships. The case study focused on B2B professional service firm. The data was collected from company databases and included the sample of 90 customers. The research was conducted in three phases first studying the age, then the service type of relationships and finally executing the cluster analysis. The data was analysed by statistical analysis program SAS Enterprise Guide. The results indicate that there are great differences between developments of customer relationships. While some relationships are dynamically growing and changing, most of customers are remaining constant. This implies expectations and requirements of customers are similarly divergent and relationships should be managed accordingly.

Organizational learning from customer interaction

In the fierce competition of today‟s business world an organization‟s capacity to learn maybe its only competitive advantage. This research aims at increasing the understanding on how organizational learning from the customer happens in technology companies. In doing so it provides a synthesized definition of organizational learning and investigates processes of organizational learning within technology companies. A qualitative research method and in-depth interviews with different sized high technology companies, as applied here, enables in-depth study of the learning processes. Research contributes to the understanding of what type of knowledge firms acquire, how new knowledge is transferred and used in a learning firm‟s routines and processes. Research findings show that SMEs and large size companies also, depending on their position in the software value chain, consider different knowledge types as most important and that they use different learning methods to acquire knowledge from their customers.

Smart homes as service platforms. Research report of ÄLYKOP sub-project “Competitive advantage from customer value”

In this report, we summarize results of our part of the ÄLYKOP-project on customer value creation in the intersection of the health care, ICT, forest and energy industries. The research directs to describe how industry transformation and convergence create new possibilities, business opportunities and even new industries.The report consists of findings which are presented former in academic publications. The publication discusses on customer value, service provision and resource basis of the novel concepts through multiple theorethical frameworks. The report is divided into three maim sections which are theoretical background, discussion on health care industry and evaluations regarding novel smart home concepts. Transaction cost economics and Resource- Based view on the firm provides the theoretical basis to analyze the prescribed phenomena. The health care industry analysis describes the most important changes in the demand conditions of health care services, and explores the features that are likely to open new business opportunities for a solution provider. The third part of the report on the smart home business provides illustrations few potential concepts that can be considered to provide solutions to economical problems which arise from aging of population. The results provide several recommendations for the smart home platform developers in public and private sectors. By the analysis, public organizations dominate service provision and private markets are emergent state at present. We argue that public-private partnerships are nececssary for creating key suppliers. Indeed, paying attion on appropriate regulation, service specifications and technology standards would foster diffusion of new services. The dynamics of the service provision networks is driven by need for new capabiltities which are required for adapting business concepts to new competitive situation. Finally, the smart home framework revealed links between conventionally distant business areas such as health care and energy distribution. The platform integrates functionalities different for purposes which however apply same resource basis.

Pk-yrityksen polku systemaattiseen tuote- ja elinkaaritiedon hallintaan

Tutkimus on tehty Tekesin DTP-ohjelman Sinfonet-tutkimusprojektin puitteissa aikavälillä 2009-2011. Työssä on laadittu kokonaisvaltainen tuote- ja elinkaaritiedon hallinnan (eng. Product Lifecycle Management, PLM) tiekartta ja kehityssuunnitelma pienelle engineering-yritykselle. Työ käsittelee asiakkaan erikoisvaatimusten mukaan räätälöitävän tuotteen tuote- ja elinkaaritiedon hallinnan systematisointia pk-yrityksessä. Vaikka PLM-tiekartta on laadittu yksittäiselle yritykselle, sitä voidaan tietyin edellytyksin soveltaa myös toisten pk-yritysten tai engineeringyritysten PLM:n kehittämiseen. Teoriassa tarkastellaan ensinnäkin kohdeyritykseen liittyviä erityispiirteitä, pyritään ymmärtämään engineering–yrityksen ja pk-yrityksen erikoispiirteitä sekä niiden vaikutusta PLM:n kehittämiseen. Toiseksi esitellään PLM:n viittä keskeistä osaaluetta, yksi- ja viisiulotteisten PLM-kypsyysmallien käyttöä yrityksen nykytilan arvioimiseksi sekä rakennetaan engineering-yrityksen kokonaisvaltainen PLM-malli ja kahdeksan askeleen PLM-kehityspolku. PLM-malli jäsentää tiedonhallintaa prosessien kautta ja se koostuu viidestä osaalueesta: strategia identifioi asiakastarpeet sekä määrittelee kuinka tuotteiden ja prosessien avulla asiakastarpeet tyydytetään; prosessit ovat yrityksen toiminnan ydin, joissa tuotemallit ja tuote- ja tietorakenteet kehitetään sekä tuoteyksilöt toimitetaan asiakkaalle; rakenteet pohjautuvat strategiassa valittuun tuote- ja tiedonhallinnan strategiaan ja niiden tehtävänä on tukea ja tehostaa toimintaprosesseja; kulttuuri ja ihmiset muodostavat aineettoman pääoman, jonka vaikutuksesta prosessit toimivat ja tuotteet pystytään toimittamaan asiakkaalle; informaatioteknologia on työkalu, jota käytetään prosesseissa ja tietorakenteiden ylläpidossa, pääosin dokumentoidun tiedon luomiseen, hankitaan, varastoimiseen, jakamiseen ja soveltamiseen. Tapaustutkimuksessa kuvataan kohdeyrityksen nykytilaa PLM:n viidellä keskeisellä osa-alueella, tehdään PLM kypsyysarvio kahdella menetelmällä, määritellään yrityksen tavoitetila ja laaditaan yritykselle ensin alustava PLM roadmap ja lopulta kokonaisvaltaiseen PLM-malliin perustuva PLM roadmap ja PLM:n jatkokehityssuunnitelma.