Improving customer service by identifying critical success factors and utilizing business process outsourcing

Consumers increasingly demand convenience when dealing with companies and therefore it is important to provide professional, diverse and speedy service via customer’s preferred communication channel. These interactions between the customer service and customer have a critical role in customer’s future purchasing decisions. Those customers who don't receive satisfactory customer service are willing to do business with another company that charges more but offers better customer service. This study identifies the critical success factors for the customer service in order to improve the customer service according to the company’s mission and meet customer expectations. Case study is used as a research method and data is collected via observation, archival records and interviews during a time span of fourteen months. The analysis suggests three critical success factors: voice support, scalable and flexible customer service and customer service champions. The study further analyzes the improvement measures according to the critical success factors concluding the Business Process Outsourcing to be the most proper to proceed with. As a conclusion of the study, critical success factors enable achieving the goals of the customer service and align operations according to the company’s mission. Business Process Outsourcing plays important role in improving the customer service by allowing fast expansion of new service offering and obtaining specialized workforce.

E-business solutions as a part of a customer service portfolio

Tässä työssä tutkittiin sähköisen liiketoiminnan palveluiden tarvetta kartonkiteollisuudessa. Palveluiden tarvetta ja sisältöä tutkittiin suomalaisessa metsäteollisuusyrityksessä. Tutkimus suoritettiin teemahaastatteluin ja sitä täydennettiin tekemällä yritys case. Tutkimuksen pohjana toimi esiselvitys, jossa muutamia sähköisen liiketoiminnan palveluita oli tunnistettu. Sähköisen liiketoiminnan palveluiden on havaittu lisääntyneen merkittävästi yritystenvälisessä liiketoiminnassa. Kuluttajakaupassa sähköisen liiketoiminnan palvelut ovat olleet jo pitkään käytössä. Sähköisen kaupankäynnin lisääntyminen on ajanut yrityksiä perustamaan sähköisiä kauppapaikkoja, modernisoimaan toimitusmallejaan tai palvelukonseptejaan sekä huomioimaan sähköisen tiedonvaihdon vaikutuksia liiketoimissaan. Tutkimuksen tulokset johtivat kolmeen johtopäätökseen. Tutkimus osoitti, että sähköisen liiketoiminnan palvelut ovat osa nykyaikaista yritystenvälistä liiketoimintaa. Palveluita on olemassa ja niitä on tarjolla yrityksen kilpailijoiden toimesta maailmanlaajuisesti. Toiseksi tutkimus osoitti, että toimitusketjun tulevaisuus on palveluiden kehittämisessä ja niiden rakentamisessa. Kartonkituotteet lähenevät toisiaan laadullisesti kokoajan, sähköiset palvelut voivat tuoda kilpailuetua ja niiden avulla voidaan erottua markkinoilla. Kolmanneksi, sähköiseen liiketoimintaan on panostettava ja palveluita on rakennettava toimitusmalleja tukevaksi. Palveluiden sisällön on huomioitava asiakastarpeet.

Customer value assessment in business markets

Understanding how firms create, communicate, and deliver value to customers is a key factor when firms seek to differentiate in increasingly competitive and commoditized business markets. As product and price have become less important differentiators in many industries, suppliers are increasingly seeking ways to differentiate themselves based on delivered customer value. Therefore, to gain a holistic understanding on what their offerings are worth to the customer, suppliers need to conduct customer value assessment, which quantifies the impact of a supplier´s offering to customers’ costs and returns. However, from a managerial perspective, customer value assessment is the single most critical challenge for firms in business markets. Consequently, developing holistic frameworks for customer value assessment is seen as one of the most important research priorities for marketing research. The purpose of this study is to explore the process of customer value assessment in business markets. Business markets represent a context where an increasing number of industrial firms are transitioning from basic product offerings towards service-based and solution-oriented hybrid offerings, which emphasize value co-creation and realization in the long term, thus making it difficult to quantify their monetary value. This study employs exploratory and qualitative research design by applying inductive and discovery-oriented grounded theory and multiple case research methods. The empirical data comprise interviews with 61 managers from 12 industrial firms, including seven best practice firms in customer value assessment. The findings of this study show that customer value assessment is essentially a crossfunctional process, which involves several organizational functions. The process begins well before and continues long after the actual delivery, often until the end of a supplier´s offering’s life-cycle. Furthermore, the findings shed light on alternative strategies that firms in business markets can adopt to implement the customer value assessment process. Overall, the findings contribute to customer value research, the sales and organizational management literature, the service marketing and solutions business literature, and suggest several managerial implications on how firms in business markets can adopt a holistic approach to assess value created for customers.

Networks and partnerships in third party logistics service production

Third party logistics, and third party logistics providers and the services they offer have grown substantially in the last twenty years. Even though there has been extensive research on third party logistics providers, and regular industry reviews within the logistics industry, a closer research in the area of partner selection and network models in the third party logistics industry is missing. The perspective taken in this study was of expanding the network research into logistics service providers as the focal firm in the network. The purpose of the study is to analyze partnerships and networks in the third party logistics industry in order to define how networks are utilized in third party logistics markets, what have been the reasons for the partnerships, and whether there are benefits for the third party logistics provider that can be achieved through building networks and partnerships. The theoretical framework of this study was formed based on common theories in studying networks and partnerships in accordance with models of horizontal and vertical partnerships. The theories applied to the framework and context of this study included the strategic network view and the resource-based view. Applying these two network theories to the position and networks of third party logistics providers in an industrial supply chain, a theoretical model for analyzing the horizontal and vertical partnerships where the TPL provider is in focus was structured. The empirical analysis of TPL partnerships consisted of a qualitative document analysis of 33 partnership examples involving companies present in the Finnish TPL markets. For the research, existing documents providing secondary data on types of partnerships, reasons for the partnerships, and outcomes of the partnerships were searched from available online sources. Findings of the study revealed that third party logistics providers are evident in horizontal and vertical interactions varying in geographical coverage and the depth and nature of the relationship. Partnership decisions were found to be made on resource based reasons, as well as from strategic aspects. The discovered results of the partnerships in this study included cost reduction and effectiveness in the partnerships for improving existing services. In addition in partnerships created for innovative service extension, differentiation, and creation of additional value were discovered to have emerged as results of the cooperation. It can be concluded that benefits and competitive advantage can be created through building partnerships in order to expand service offering and seeking synergies.

Service offering classification for logistics services

This thesis studies the development of service offering model that creates added-value for customers in the field of logistics services. The study focusses on offering classification and structures of model. The purpose of model is to provide value-added solutions for customers and enable superior service experience. The aim of thesis is to define what customers expect from logistics solution provider and what value customers appreciate so greatly that they could invest in value-added services. Value propositions, costs structures of offerings and appropriate pricing methods are studied. First, literature review of creating solution business model and customer value is conducted. Customer value is found out with customer interviews and qualitative empiric data is used. To exploit expertise knowledge of logistics, innovation workshop tool is utilized. Customers and experts are involved in the design process of model. As a result of thesis, three-level value-added service offering model is created based on empiric and theoretical data. Offerings with value propositions are proposed and the level of model reflects the deepness of customer-provider relationship and the amount of added value. Performance efficiency improvements and cost savings create the most added value for customers. Value-based pricing methods, such as performance-based models are suggested to apply. Results indicate the interest of benefitting networks and partnership in field of logistics services. Networks development is proposed to be investigated further.

Enhancing business-to-business relationship through value co-creation in traditional business sector: A case of building services engineering

This study discusses the significance of having service as a business logic, and more specifically, how value co-creation can be seen as an enhancing phenomenon to business-to-business relationships in traditional business sector. The purpose of this study is to investigate how value cocreation can enhance a business-to-business relationship in the heating, ventilation and airconditioning (HVAC) industry of building services engineering, through three sub-objectives: to identify what is value in the industry, how value is co-created in the industry, and what is value in a business-to-business relationship in the industry. The theoretical part this study consists of academic knowledge and literature related to the concepts of value, value co-creation and business-to-business relationships. In order to research value co-creation and business-to-business relationships in HVAC industry of building services engineering both, metaphorical and conceptual thinking of service dominant (S-D) logic and more managerial approach of service logic (SL), contributed to the theoretical part of the study. The empirical research conducted for this study is based on seven semi-structured interviews, which constituted the holistic, qualitative single case study method chosen for the research. The data was collected in September 2014 from CEOs, managers and owners representing six building services engineering firms. The interviews were analysed with the help of transcriptions, role-ordered matrices and thematic networks. The findings of this study indicate that value in HVAC industry consists of client expertise and supplier expertise. The result of applying client expertise and supplier expertise to the business-to- business relationship is characterized as value-in-reputation, when continuity, interaction, learning and rapport of the business relationship are ensured. As a result, value co-creation in the industry consists of mutual and separate elements, which the client and the supplier apply in the process, in addition to proactive interaction. The findings of this study, together with the final framework, enhance the understanding of the connection existing between value co-creation and business-to-business relationship. The findings suggest that value in the HVAC industry is characterized by both value-in-use and value-inreputation. Value-in-reputation enhances the formation of value-in-use, and consequently, value cocreation enhances the business-to-business relationship. This study thus contributes to the existing knowledge on the concepts of value and value co-creation in business-to-business relationships.

Business intelligence – enabling self-service: A case study in a global manufacturing company

Business intelligence (BI) is an information process that includes the activities and applications used to transform business data into valuable business information. Today’s enterprises are collecting detailed data which has increased the available business data drastically. In order to meet changing customer needs and gain competitive advantage businesses try to leverage this information. However, IT departments are struggling to meet the increased amount of reporting needs. Therefore, recent shift in the BI market has been towards empowering business users with self-service BI capabilities. The purpose of this study was to understand how self-service BI could help businesses to meet increased reporting demands. The research problem was approached with an empirical single case study. Qualitative data was gathered with a semi-structured, theme-based interview. The study found out that case company’s BI system was mostly used for group performance reporting. Ad-hoc and business user-driven information needs were mostly fulfilled with self-made tools and manual work. It was felt that necessary business information was not easily available. The concept of self-service BI was perceived to be helpful to meet such reporting needs. However, it was found out that the available data is often too complex for an average user to fully understand. The respondents felt that in order to self-service BI to work, the data has to be simplified and described in a way that it can be understood by the average business user. The results of the study suggest that BI programs struggle in meeting all the information needs of today’s businesses. The concept of self-service BI tries to resolve this problem by allowing users easy self-service access to necessary business information. However, business data is often complex and hard to understand. Self-serviced BI has to overcome this challenge before it can reach its potential benefits.

Business intelligence – enabling self-service: A case study in a global manufacturing company

Business intelligence (BI) is an information process that includes the activities and applications used to transform business data into valuable business information. Today’s enterprises are collecting detailed data which has increased the available business data drastically. In order to meet changing customer needs and gain competitive advantage businesses try to leverage this information. However, IT departments are struggling to meet the increased amount of reporting needs. Therefore, recent shift in the BI market has been towards empowering business users with self-service BI capabilities. The purpose of this study was to understand how self-service BI could help businesses to meet increased reporting demands. The research problem was approached with an empirical single case study. Qualitative data was gathered with a semi-structured, theme-based interview. The study found out that case company’s BI system was mostly used for group performance reporting. Ad-hoc and business user-driven information needs were mostly fulfilled with self-made tools and manual work. It was felt that necessary business information was not easily available. The concept of self-service BI was perceived to be helpful to meet such reporting needs. However, it was found out that the available data is often too complex for an average user to fully understand. The respondents felt that in order to self-service BI to work, the data has to be simplified and described in a way that it can be understood by the average business user. The results of the study suggest that BI programs struggle in meeting all the information needs of today’s businesses. The concept of self-service BI tries to resolve this problem by allowing users easy self-service access to necessary business information. However, business data is often complex and hard to understand. Self-serviced BI has to overcome this challenge before it can reach its potential benefits.

A service perspective to digital innovation: exploring the emergence of autonomous shipping

Current research describes digital innovation largely similar to product innovation. Digital innovation is seen as an object of coherent activities, however in reality digital innovation results from convergence of variant technologies and those related actors with versatile business goals. To account for the dynamic nature of digital innovation, this study applies a service perspective to digital innovation. The purpose of the study is to understand how digital innovation emerges within a service ecosystem for autonomous shipping. The sub-objectives of this study are to 1) identify what factors motivate and demotivate actors to integrate resources for autonomous shipping, 2) explore the key technology areas to be integrated to realise the autonomous shipping concept, and 3) suggest how the technology areas are combined for mutual value creation within a service eco-system for autonomous shipping. Insights from autonomous driving were also included. This study draws on literatures on service innovation and service-dominant logic. The research was conducted as a qualitative exploratory case study. The data comprise interviews of 18 marine and automotive industry experts, 4 workshops, 4 seminars, and observations as well as various secondary data sources. The findings revealed that the key actors have versatile motivations regarding autonomous shipping. These varied from opportunities for single applications to occupying a central role in an autonomous technology platform. Thus, autonomous shipping can be seen as an umbrella concept comprising multiple levels. In technical terms, the development of the concept of autonomous shipping is largely based on combining existing technology solutions, which are gradually integrated towards more systemic entities comprising areas of the autonomous shipping concept. This study argues that a service perspective embraces the inherently complex and dynamic nature of digital innovation. This is captured in the developed research framework that describes digital innovation emerging on different levels of interaction: 1. strategic relationships for new solutions, 2. new local networks for technology platforms, and 3. global networks for new markets. The framework shows how the business models and motivations of digital innovation actors feed the emergence of digital innovation in overlapping service ecosystems that together comprise an innovation ecosystem for autonomous technologies. Digital innovation managers will benefit from seeing their businesses as part of a larger ecosystem of value co-creating actors. In orchestrating digital innovation within a service ecosystem, it is suggested that managers consider the resources, roles and institutions within the ecosystem. Finally, as autonomous shipping is at its infancy, the topic provides a number of interesting avenues for future research.